It was a shame he couldn't do it. I would have begged him for it, if he could have.

But Death will not be denied. I knew that, even as something old and screaming inside me rose up in rebellion that was quelled by what had to be done now.

I held up the vial again, shook it gently. The grains inside rattled softly, mocking me. "What do you suppose is in this?" The words hitched, caught. I closed my eyes, dropping my hand. It was getting harder to breathe. The air had turned to clear mud.

I heard him cross the room, his booted feet making noise for my benefit. He stopped by the bed, and his fingers slid through my hair again. The touch was gentle and intimate, a gesture he habitually performed in Toscano to request my attention away from my feverish research. He trailed his fingertips down my temple, over my cheek, infinitely gentle.

"I would almost prefer your weeping." His voice stroked the air, turning it to golden velvet. Soothing, a tone so far divorced from his usual flat dry irony he hardly sounded like the same person. "What would you have of me? Tell me what to do, Dante."

My bag clinked as it shifted against my hip. "How savage can you be?" The words turned to ash in my throat. "Because when I find whoever did this, I want them to suffer."

Another long pause as he stroked my cheek again, his sensitive fingertips skimming my skin, sending comforting tingles and ripples of fire down my back. My breath caught, the spiked mass of pain inside my chest turning over.

"Demons understand vengeance." He touched my upper lip, tracing the curves.

Gods. "What don't demons understand?"

"Humans." He said it so promptly and ironically I laughed, a forlorn little chuckle that didn't sound like me at all. I scooped up three of the four vials and handed them to him.

"Keep these. They're safer with you." If I can trust you to give them back, that is. But this is nothing you'd be interested in, I'm betting.

His fingers flicked, and the small plasglass containers disappeared just like the tiny origami animals he'd made out of my notes. He said nothing else, simply stood and watched me, waiting.

Thinking of how fast his hands were made me wonder where all the little folded-paper animals had ended up. Now that I thought about it, I really couldn't remember seeing creases in any of my notes; I couldn't remember seeing any piece of paper he'd selected to fold and amuse me with ever again.

Dammit, Danny, don't lose your focus. Your problem isn't Japhrimel. Not right now, anyway.

You know, if it wasn't so grim, that'd be a relief. Guilt scored me even as the black humor of the thought helped. I let out a long shuddering sigh. Held up the small vial again, shook it. I opened the file, scooting back and pulling my legs up onto the bed, retreating from him. "Come take a look at this, if you want. It's Eddie's homicide file." Hooray for me. I sound almost normal, except for the way my voice cracks. I sounded like a vidsex operator, my ruined throat giving each word a rough husky pleasantness. Except for the unsteady fury smoking under the soft surface.

"The dirtwitch." Japhrimel settled on the bed next to me. Did he sound uncertain? "He was… he was a good man," What, for a human? But that was unfair. Japh was trying to be kind. I swallowed around the hard lump in my throat, tasting bile. "He was. " I steeled myself. Looked down to find the laseprint of Eddie's mangled body glaring accusingly up at me. "Gods above." A shocked whisper, as if I'd been punched.

"Perhaps you should be still for a moment." Japhrimel leaned back until he half-reclined on the bed, propped on his elbows. It was a curious pose for someone so controlled, especially with his hair slightly ruffled. A vulnerable stance, exposing his stomach.

Are you crazy? I just got up late and found my best friend-my only friend-dead. I'm not resting. Not for a long, long time. I shook my head. "No." The lamp rattled on the bedside table, pushed by the plascharge of Power in my voice. My rings sparked again, golden crackles in the charged, swirling air.

The temptation to draw my sword and start hacking at the graceless, ugly furniture was overwhelming.

I looked back down at the file. Hot bile whipped the back of my mouth, and my blade rang softly inside its sheath. Japhrimel reached over, his golden fingers closing on the file. He pulled it away from my unresisting hands. I heard the rattling whine of a hover outside the hotel's windows, human footsteps in the hall. I heard the walls groaning their long slow songs of stress and windshift, heard the faint sound my hair made as it slid against my shoulders. He closed the file, set it aside. Then, deliberately, he lay back on the bed, his fingers laced behind his dark head. I felt the weight of his eyes on my back, looked down at my hands.

Chipped black molecule-drip polish on my nails, the graceful architecture of demon bones, the fragility of my wrists. "I should look at it. I have to start… finding out what I can. I have to."

"I know," was the quiet answer. "But not yet, Dante. Not just yet.„

"Why not?" Goddamn you, why not?

"There is nothing you can do at just this moment. Be still. A hunter does not rush blindly after prey." A thread of gold in the room, his voice brushed the paint, ruffled my hair, touched my cheek. The soundless static of his attention filled empty space. I wouldn't have been surprised to find he was aware of every dust mote, every fiber of the carpet, every stitch in the curtains. Japhrimel was tense, edgy. Ready for anything.

It didn't help that he was right. I was so keyed-up I would maybe miss something important-or crucial by forcing myself to look through the file now. I had to think clearly. I had to be cold, chill, logical. I had to be.

So what could I do?

Think about it. Just sit still. Study.

But sitting still only made me more aware of the weight behind my eyes, the clawing in my chest. Wine-red, wine-dark, sharp as my sword and chill as the ocean I'd been dumped into after I'd killed Santino.

I shuddered. Don't, Danny. Don't think about that.

I jerked, moving as if to lever myself off the bed, but Japhrimel caught my wrist and pulled, catching me by surprise. My balance tipped, I landed hard enough to drive a small sound out between my teeth, ending up trapped in his arms with my sword between us, my rig creaking, the holster of a plasgun digging into my hip and a projectile gun higher up, shoved painfully against a floating rib. Knifehilts dug against my ribs and pressed into my back.

"Be still," Japhrimel hissed in my ear, his breath touching my skin and sending a hot spill of sensation through my flesh. "Please, Dante."

I kicked him, twisting to get free, the plasgun digging even deeper into my hip. "Let me go!"

"No."

I wriggled, tried to knee him, but his arms turned to iron bands. It was a novel kind of sparring match. He was demon; I was only a lousy human infected with demonic Power. No contest. I started to struggle in earnest, earning myself a starry jolt of pain when I cracked my head against his shoulder and finally collapsed, breathing heavily, his leg over both of mine, his arms almost crushing me.

"Let go," I said into the hollow between his throat and shoulder. I contemplated biting him. "What are you fucking doing? Let go of me!"

"You are in a mood to harm yourself." His breath was warm in my hair. "When you are calm I will let you go, not before."

Goddamn him, he's right. I was in a fey space between agony and revenge, I could easily see flinging myself out the window, running, smashing my fist through the wall just to break something, hurt something, kill something. "I am not going to harm myself," I whispered. "I'm going to kill whoever did this to her."