Two days later, the buzzing sound jolted me out of an uneasy thready half-trance. Jace muttered something next to me, blowing out between pursed lips. I rolled over, checked the clock, and sighed. The cotton sheets tangled around my legs, I'd been tossing again.

Three PM. Another drunken night of watching old Indiana Jones, Magi and Father Egyptos holovids shot to hell. There had been a letter in the afternoon mail, an un-addressed vellum envelope with a heavy bloodied wax seal. Even as I picked it up, I'd caught a whiff of heavy, spicy scent. Demon. My hands had moved despite myself, trembling, and torn the heavy beautiful envelope open.

Careful scripted calligraphy marched across thick linen paper. Dante. I would speak to you. And signed, simply, L. As if I wouldn't know who it was from.

The Prince of Hell. Lucifer himself, sending me a little note. I'd tried to tell myself I didn't care, tossed it in the garbage compacter, and matched Jace drink for drink.

Not like it helped. I couldn't even get drunk.

Jace muttered again and turned away, presenting me with his broad, muscled back. The scorpion tattoo on his left shoulder blade shifted uneasily, its black-edged stinger flexing. Thin lines of pale scarring traced across muscle hard as tile, marring skin that had never lost its Nuevo Rio tan. He'd collapsed on my bed for once because the room down the hall was too far away when he was that inebriated. Besides, it was almost soothing to hear him breathing next to me while I lay and tried to sleep, achieving at most a half-trance that tried to rest the mind and left me feeling almost as tired as when I started.

Something's up. Instinct raced along my spine, my rings flashed. A golden spark popped from the amber cabochon on my left middle finger. Of course something was up, nobody would call me in the late afternoon unless something was up. And no holomarketer would call a registered psion's number, we tended to be a bad return on that advertising dollar. Even though it was illegal to hex a normal out of spite, some of us had a nasty habit of disregarding possible legal action when it came to bloody holomarketing jackals. It was also expensive for corporations to keep the required coverage that would bring a psion out to remove the hex.

My left shoulder ached, a sudden fresh bite of coldness burning all the way down to the bone. If I touched it, I might almost feel the ropes of scar moving under my fingers. I refrained from touching it, as usual, and shifted position, rolling the shoulder in its socket as I shook the almost-dream away. The phone shrilled again, the most annoying buzz I'd heard in a long time.

I scooped up the receiver, cursing at whoever had thought it was a good idea to plug in a phone up here. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Which meant I was muttering imprecations at myself. "Sekkmet sa'es. What?"

All things considered, it was as polite as I could get. I never use the vid capability on modern phones if I can help it, me thought of someone seeing me inside my own private house without having to get in a goddamn hover and come out just rubbed me the wrong way.

Plus, if I want to answer the phone naked, it's nobody's business but mine.

"Danny." Gabe's voice. Of all the people I could identify with one word, she was at the top of the list She sounded strained and urgent. "Get your ass up. I need you."

I sat bolt upright, dragging the sheet away from Jace, who made a low, sleepy sound of protest and curled into a tighter ball. "Where?"

Click of a lighter, inhaled breath. She was smoking again. Bad news. "I'm at the station. How soon can you be here?"

I reached over, shook Jace's shoulder. His skin was cool under mine, my lacquered fingernails scraping slightly. He woke up a little more gracefully than I did, sitting up, sheathing the knife he kept under his pillow as soon as he realized I was on the phone instead of under attack. We were both jumpy; going from bounty to bounty will do that to you.

"I'm on my way," I told her. "Hang loose."

She hung up. I dropped the phone back into its cradle and stretched, the ligaments in my right hand cracking as I tried to spread the fingers all the way. I hadn't been dreaming, but it had been the closest I'd gotten to real sleep for a good three weeks, and I didn't like having it interrupted. Bounties weren't good for resting; sleep usually meant your prey was getting away.

Then again, I've always had bad dreams; the only stretch of good sleep I've ever had was when Doreen lived with me. A sedayeen could tranquilize even the unruliest Necromance, and that was one more thing I missed about her: the gentleness in the middle of the night when she calmed me down from a nightmare and sent me back into grateful blackness.

I could count the time I'd spent with Japhrimel, but we hadn't done a whole lot of sleeping.

"What's up now?" Jace sounded sleepy, but he slid his legs out of the bed and grabbed his jeans. I was already across the room, pulling a fresh shirt off the hanger with no memory of the intervening space. I'd blinked through the room again, using inhuman speed. Got to stop doing that.

Ten months and counting, and I still wasn't used to it. I remembered just how eerily, spookily quick Japhrimel could move, and wondered if I looked the same way when my body blinked through space and my mind tried to catch up. A piece of my power, he'd said. To make you stronger, less easy to damage.

If it wasn't for that gift I might be dead now. Lucky Danny Valentine, tougher than your average psion.

"Gabe. At the station. Wants us there now." I didn't need to yawn, but I did take a deep breath, wondering where the weariness came from. If I didn't need to sleep, why should I be tired?

Did part-demons need sleep? None of the Magi shadow-journals or demonology books could tell me, and hunting down bounties was cutting into my research time in a big way. But research just gave me too goddamn much time to fret.

"Puck." Jace yawned, stretched. He stripped wheat-gold hair back from his face, yanked his shirt down, and shrugged into his assassin's rig. Oiled, supple leather; guns, knives—my own hands moved automatically. My right hand throbbed uneasily until I shook it out, joints cracking and popping. I ducked my head through the strap of my black canvas bag and had to stop, taking another deep breath, settling the strap diagonally across my body.

Maybe it was another bounty. I hoped it was another bounty. A big one, a complex one, one that would keep me occupied with the next thing to be done, and the next, and the next.

It didn't matter. I jerked my coat from its hook, shrugged into it. My two main knives rode in their sheaths; the guns easy and loose in my rig, and my rings popped a few more golden sparks. Familiar excitement mixed with dread deep in my belly, tainted the air I blew out between my teeth.

"Did she say anything else?" Jace rubbed his face, yawning again. His aura rippled, the spiky darkness of a Shaman prickling the air. My own cloak of energy responded, singing an almost-audible answer. "I mean, do I need to bring the rifle?"

"No." I plunged my fingers in my bag and checked for extra ammo clips, the plasgun didn't need mem but the projectile weapons did. Sunlight glowed under the edges of my bedroom blinds; I felt logy and slow, as I usually did during the day. "Just your staff. If she needed your rifle she wouldn't have dialed, she'd have shown up personally."

"Good point." How did the man sound so casually amused, especially after drinking three quarters of a bottle of Chivas Red? I could still smell the sourness of his body and Power metabolizing the alcohol, running through the depressant, converting the sugars. "Fuck. I think I'm still drunk, Danny."