I suppose for him that passed as a polite greeting. "Getting news from one of his stooges." Proving he's one of the good guys, as far as I'm concerned.

The café was windowless, but one whole pillared wall of graceful arched doorways gave out onto the courtyard garden, where green flowered lush under a shimmer of climate control. Linen napkins, heavy silverware, the glasses real silica instead of plasglass, a tiled floor and smooth adobe walls-if the outside of this place looked shabby, the inside at least was very nice. There was a breath of warm breeze from the garden, heavily spiced with jasmine that would fairly drench the place once night fell. "So what's good here?"

"Don't know. The Necromance recommended huevos Benedictos." Wonder of wonders, Lucas shuddered. "No matter how old I get, I ain't gonna eat that shit."

I was startled into a laugh. If I'd still been human I would have been too terrified to enjoy any of his jokes. "I don't blame you. How are you feeling?"

It was a stupid question, and his yellowing eyes simply came up and dropped back down to the menu. He didn't respond, and my good mood soured only a little. Lucas wasn't a small-talk type of guy.

The waitress came, a sloe-eyed Egyptiano in jeans and a blousy cassock of a shirt, traditional lasetattoos on her dark hands. The shirt, fine cotton, was embroidered with red around the cuffs and collar; her hair, long and black, pulled back in a simple ponytail. She still looked exotic, helped along by the gold nose-ring and the thin gold rings on each finger as well as the slim chiming bangles on her slender wrists, startling against dusky skin. "Would you like today sirs?" she chirped in passable Merican, taking no notice of my tat or Lucas's scarred face-or the fact that both of us were armed.

Most normals blanch or flinch on seeing my cheek. They think psions have nothing better to do than rummage through their messy, stinking minds. It never occurs to them that going through a normal's psyche is like wading neck-deep in festering shit. Even corporate and legal telepaths don't like dealing with normals and always use a filter between their own sensitive, well-ordered minds and the untrained sludge in most people's heads.

Besides, I was a Necromance, not a Reader or a legal telepath. The emerald on my cheek shouted what I was; there was no reason for normals to be afraid of me unless they were running from the law or attacked me first. I've been feared by normals most of my life, but it never gets any easier. Not even when you're part-demon.

I picked up a flat plascoated menu. One side was in Erabic, the other in Merican and Franje. I scanned the offerings while Lucas ordered curry, a small mountain of rice, and coffee.

She looked at me, smiling. Her teeth were very white. I asked for the same thing-Lucas probably knew what he was about, despite his show of ignorance. I did ask for a synthprotein shake too, but just because I felt peckish.

She accepted the menus with a smile. It was comforting to sit in a café as if I was on vacation-even though Lucas had his back to the safe spot and I had to put mine to the archway leading from the lobby. That made me nervous.

Then again, he'd taken on the Devil for me. Like Japhrimel.

Besides, Lucas's reputation would suffer if one of his clients got hashed at the breakfast table with him. I was pretty sure he cared about his reputation, if nothing else. There was a story that he'd once taken on a whole corporation's security division when a stray shot had accidentally killed his target before he could get to it.

The rumor further was, he'd won-after being knifed, shot, blown up, knifed again, shot five more times, and blown up the last time with a full half-ounce of C 19. No, you didn't mess with Lucas Villalobos or his reputation.

I watched the waitress sway away. There was only one other occupied table-a normal male in a hoverpilot's uniform buried in a huge broadsheet newspaper covered with squiggles of Erabic. It looked a little like Magi code and I narrowed my eyes, staring intently at the inked lines. My left hand was solid around my katana's sheath.

I finally felt as if I'd survived Sarajevo. And my last meeting with the Prince of Hell. Getting kicked around and half-strangled by the Devil was getting to be almost routine, by now.

Not really. That sort of thing never gets routine.

I let out a long breath, my shoulders dropping. It was going to be a long time before I could smell baking bread again without being reminded of the Anhelikos in the empty temple, its wings mantling and cloying perfume brushing through my hair as my legs turned to butter.

It was going to be a long time before I could begin to forget Lucifer's hand circling my neck, little things creaking and crackling in my throat. My husky broken voice bore no relation to what it had been while human. What was it with demons and strangling me?

"What you gonna do?" Lucas asked finally.

I found him studying me, his dark eyebrows drawn together and his thin mouth twisted down at one corner. "About what?" Dammit, I never used to wander off in the middle of conversations. Got to keep focused.

He gave me a look that could have cut plasteel. "The Devil. And Ol' Blue Eyes."

Eve. Lucifer had contracted me to kill or capture four demons, without mentioning Doreen's genetically-altered daughter was the fourth. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like he'd been using me to draw Eve out.

But if he wanted her dead or captured, the other hunters he'd sent after her-and her cohorts-would be more than enough, wouldn't they? To christen me his new Right Hand, wind me up, and send me after her fellow rebels while simultaneously throwing noisy obstacles in my way and showing up to capture or kill her himself… what game was that part of? It wasn't like the Devil to crawl out of his hole personally before everything was all neatly wrapped up.

Bait. And some other game is being played here. Lucky me.

Japhrimel had to know I wouldn't agree to take Eve down or return her to Lucifer. And last but definitely not least, what the hell did it have to do with this treasure, the Key, and me?

"I don't know," I lied. "I can't hunt down Doreen's daughter, Lucas. Santino killed Doreen, and I killed Santino." Boy, is that ever an understatement. For a moment my right hand cramped, but I spread my fingers under the table and it passed. My good mood was fading even more. "Lucifer took Eve. She…"

She said I was her mother too, that the sample Vardimal took from Doreen was contaminated with my genetic material. I hadn't told Japhrimel, it was too private. Too personal. It was different from the omissions he'd made to me, I told myself.

Wasn't it?

"You contracted me for four demons," Lucas reminded me.

And she's one of them. The remainder of the funny, light feeling under my breastbone disappeared, returning me to sour anticipation and a faint headache. I looked away from the table, out toward the garden, steaming sweet green under the glaring hammerblow of desert sun. "I know."

Maybe I would have said more, but the datband flashed on my left wrist. I looked down, my eyes snagging on the silvery wristcuff above my dat, carved with its fluid lines. The Gauntlet, Lucifer's little calling-card, marking me as his extra-special deputy. My skin crawled at the thought of wearing it, but there hadn't been a chance to take it off. Getting chased around by hellhounds and half-strangled by demons will cut into any girl's accessorizing schedule.

My datband flashed again. I had a message. I dug in my bag for my datpilot, wrinkling my nose a little. The heavy black canvas bag had gone through hell with me-literally. Both to the home of demons when Japhrimel had been sent to fetch me the first time and the other hell of my return to Rigger Hall.