"Very well. This is only a hunt like any other. You are starting ill and will finish badly if you do not calm yourself." He was breathless too; the spice and musk smell of demon drenched the bed, filled my nose, coated the back of my throat.

Damn demon pheromones. He smells safe, dammit. Oh, gods. Gods help me. I choked back a panicked giggle. After a long pause, he rested his chin atop my head. I shut my eyes tightly, willing the stone egg inside my chest to stay hard and smooth. Impenetrable.

It didn't help that I could see the cool logic of what he was saying. If I started out half-cocked and crazy, I'd get nowhere-and Gabe might be unavenged.

Like Doreen had been unavenged for so long.

If I'd been smarter or faster-or a Magi-I might have recognized Santino for what he was, and Doreen might still be alive. If I'd been stronger and not half-crippled from killing Santino, I could have kept my promise and saved Eve. If I'd been faster, able to use all the preternatural speed Japh had given me, Jace might still be alive. If I'd been home instead of hiding out with a demon in Toscano, Eddie and Gabe might still be alive.

If, if, if. I hated that dried-up, prissy, disapproving little word.

I'd even blamed myself for Japhrimel's first death, though he had indisputably come back. Had it been death at all, or a kind of sleep? The word he used-dormancy-conveyed only a type of rest. A sleep of a body ground to cinnamon-smelling ash, with only a will to survive left in its crystalline matrices, calling out to me.

Japhrimel drew in a long, soft breath. "Calm," he whispered into my hair. "Calm, my curious one." He said more, but I didn't listen. It wasn't the words, it was the rumble in his chest telling me I was safe, that he was with me, that I had to calm down.

A small click echoed inside my head, the same sound a work of magick makes sliding whole and complete into place. It was the sound of a hunt starting, of the right moment to begin. I inhaled deeply, drawing musk-spice smell all the way down to the bottom of my lungs. Here was a demon who had lied to me, misled me, hurt me, dragged me into working for the Prince of Hell again-but he still comforted me. He'd protected me when it mattered most.

He had even matched his strength against Lucifer's and come away the winner.

I was still soothed, listening to the strong slow beat of his pulse echoing mine.

How was that for crazy?

"I'm all right," I managed. "Really."

"I doubt it." He kissed my hair, a slight intimate movement. I was glad I don't blush easy. "If you continue in this manner, you may well drive me mad."

Drive you mad? What the hell does that mean? When he didn't continue, I wriggled impatiently and he eased up a little. His arms were still tense; if I tried to escape he'd just clamp down again. "What?"

"I do not like to see you in such pain. What will you do first?"

I contemplated the question, trying to find a comfortable way to lie with my rig on. It didn't happen. I took in another deep breath of his smell, male and spice and demon musk, felt my heartbeat slow just a little. "Japh, let me up. I've got a plasgun trying to burrow into my hip and a projectile gun looking for my spleen the hard way. Okay?

"Perhaps I like holding you. We have had little closeness of late."

We may not have a whole lot in the foreseeable future, either. "If you'd quit hiding things from me and pushing me around, maybe we'd have more." I didn't have time to into a spat with him. I really didn't.

"I am not your enemy." He stroked my hair, his fingers slipping between the silky strands.

My reply startled me. "Oh, yeah? Prove it." Then I felt like an idiot; I sounded like a spoiled brat.

"If you like." He laughed, as if genuinely amused. That only irritated me more. The fresh frustration was tonic, pushing aside the numb blackness of shock and grieving horror.

I bit his shoulder, sinking my teeth in, and he sucked in a breath. But his arms didn't loosen, and his body tensed in a way I was all too familiar with.

Well, now. Don't I feel silly. The taste of musk and night and demon filled my mouth, as intimate as a kiss, the material of his coat slick and pulsing with Power against my lips. It reminded me of just how long it had been since I'd had him, felt the blessed relief of not having to think, trusting him with my body. I tried to pull away from him again, achieved nothing.

Dammit, quit treating me like a kid! "Japhrimel-"

His voice cut across mine, soft and inflexible. "Not just yet, Dante. I am not yet convinced you are quite in control of your temper."

It was too much. One thing after another, from Sarajevo to Saint City, so much death and destruction piled on top of an already-strained mind. How much more could I stand without breaking?

I'll show you temper, you supercilious son of a bitch. I pulled back, inhaled, and held my breath, my eyes squeezed shut. Fifteen seconds. Thirty.

The blackness behind my eyelids exploded with pinwheels and bursts of color, far more vivid than real life. The blue glow of Death rose too, the place inside me where the god lived opening like a flower. For the first time, I didn't want to escape into that glow, kept myself away by a sheer effort of will, lungs crying out, pulse throbbing in my ears and throat and the rising tide of desire almost swamped by the sudden urgent need for oxygen.

Even demons need to breathe, don't they? A second thought, I'm acting like a kid. Well, he treats me like one, I might as well. I've reverted to a spoiled three-year-old.

The fact that I understood I was acting like an idiot couldn't stop me, for once.

Japhrimel's arms loosened. He shook me, hard but just short of hurting, my hair rasping against the pillow. Pent-up air rushed out, I breathed again. Opened my eyes to find him watching me.

The arc of his cheekbone took me by surprise, as it always did. The sculpture of his lips, now pulled tight and thin into a straight line, his eyebrows drawn together, a faint line between them. His eyes were incandescent, silken green. For a moment, he looked like Lucifer. The resemblance was so sudden and striking my heart slammed into my throat and demon adrenaline jolted my entire body, leaving me gratefully alive and thinking clearly for the first time since passing through Gabe's front gate that day.

"Do not," he said quietly, in a voice like the Prince of Hell's, "ever do that again."

Bingo, Danny. We've found something that works to irritate him. I felt equally childish and vindicated, as if I'd suddenly gained some kind of control over the situation. "Or what?" I finally worked my way free of his arm. If my voice hadn't been shaking so badly, I might have almost sounded tough.

"Or I will teach you not to do so." The bed creaked as he flowed away and to his feet, without a single hitch in the movement. "Think what you like of me. I begin to believe you will anyway."

Gods above and below does he actually sound hurt? I could barely believe my ears. He stalked away and I was too badly shaken to say a word. Lucifer called Japhrimel his Eldest, and I wondered how on earth I could live with a being that old, that powerful-and that alien. He wasn't human, for all he'd successfully mimicked it for me.

Not human. Inhuman.

But then I was no longer fully human either, was I? Maybe only human inside my head. Or my aching, pounding heart.

Wherever I'm still human, it will have to be enough. The bedroom door closed behind him. I hunched on the edge of the bed, buried my face in my hands, and shoved down the tears. After a long, shaking moment or two, I sighed and dropped my fists into my lap. Looked over at the file, lying innocent against the now-rumpled bedspread. Japhrimel was right, I hadn't been thinking straight. Even if he'd irritated me past human endurance, he had still helped me clear my head.