Demon Angel

by Meljean Brook

  Whether Lilith opened her mind to the demon to convince her, or if it was simply a lack of loyalty toward Beelzebub, Hugh didn’t know—but in the next instant the chair was empty.

  Lilith grinned and turned to Sir Pup. “She is gone?” When the hellhound gave his affirmative headshake, she signed, Demons only care for their own asses. But it won’t take her long to realize he isn’t on her heels.

  Hugh gestured to the open doorway of the waiting area. They’d hoped to arm themselves in advance, but there’d been too many agents walking past the room to risk it. Apparently, word of Lilith’s return was spreading, and a few of the more curious wanted to catch a glimpse of her themselves. We can’t call in the weapons out here.

  “Shit.” She took a deep breath. Shut the door as quickly as possible.

  They’d practiced this, too. The door had to be closed for the soundproofing to cover the noise of the gunfire; it wouldn’t completely muffle it, but outside the assistant’s room it could be mistaken for a dropped file, the snap of a laptop closed too hard.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he said.

  CHAPTER 33

  She measured it in breaths. The first just before she opened the door, and it was used calling for the gun. Her hand was already in front of her, she only had to wrap her finger around the trigger. Beelzebub looked up. A blur as he leapt atop his desk, and Sir Pup streaked past her leg. Don’t engage him, she thought—it wasn’t part of the plan. A demon could kill a hellhound, but not a human, so she wanted Sir Pup as far away from him as possible. Only surprise him, make him hesitate.

  She exhaled, fell to her knee, and waited for the click of the latch. The hellhound stopped in the middle of the room, bracing his paws and shifting. Two swords in Beelzebub’s hands now. Just far enough into the room that Hugh wouldn’t have to maneuver space for himself as he closed the door.

  Not aiming for the eyes this time; easier to track their red glow than his body as he sped toward her. And Hugh would need them to—

  Click.

  She pulled the trigger. Less than four yards away, a crimson flower bloomed from Beelzebub’s chest. Another from his gut.

  His momentum helped carry him forward, but he was slower. Vampire speed. Good enough. Two yards now. Her ears rang; she hadn’t heard Hugh call for his weapon over the report of the gun. Had Sir Pup?

  She saw the bolt embed in his stomach before she heard the twang from the crossbow’s string, the thunk of its impact into flesh.

  Beelzebub dropped.

  A single breath, and it was one of the sweetest she’d ever taken.

  “Do I enjoy this too much?”

  Hugh turned the lock, then glanced back at Lilith. She stood with her boot pressed to Beelzebub’s throat, and cheerfully placed the point of the crossbow to his left shoulder. The demon roared as she shot a bolt through, pinning him to the floor. The feathered butts stuck up from his right shoulder and his wrists—necessary after he’d managed to rip the shaft of the first from his abdomen.

  “No,” Hugh replied. “What about his legs?” If the demon got his feet under him, it would give him too much leverage.

  Beelzebub shifted, his clothes disappearing, hard scales covering his large form.

  Lilith grinned. “A little late. Bet that took just about all of your energy, didn’t it? But a tougher hide won’t save you, and your belly’s still nice and soft.” She covered his eyes with her foot, then looked over at Hugh. Any more venom, and he might not be able to talk.

  Sir Pup lay in front of the door; Hugh debated for just a moment before signing, We need him as our defense there. Will more blood make you sick? I can remove his legs.

  Her lips twisted, and she tried to look affronted but failed. Probably. And he’s weak as it is: we can’t take the risk he’ll lose more.

  Hugh moved to stand next to the demon, examining him closely. The bullet wounds had healed, the scales closed up around the shafts of the bolts. Only the venom held him still, but they had to ride a fine line between weakness and full paralysis, and they didn’t know how long the effects would last. “Axe,” he said finally, and then lowered the edge against the demon’s throat. More venom on the blade, but if Hugh used the weapon it wouldn’t be to slow him down. “If you move anything but your mouth, I’ll take off your head.”

  Lilith lifted her foot, stepped onto Beelzebub’s stomach and crouched. She held the crossbow between her knees, tipped down so the bolt was aimed at his heart. “We need information,” she said. “And it’s going to be very simple—you answer our questions, or you die.”

  His burning red gaze moved between them. “Kill me. You will anyway.”

  “It’s true I have not forgotten what you’ve done to me,” Lilith said. “I’ll slay you if I can . . . unless we strike a bargain. I don’t kill you, and you answer our questions truthfully.”

  Hugh ground his teeth together, but remained silent.

  “It is not equal.”

  She smiled. “You aren’t in a position to bargain for equality. You have ten seconds to decide, or I kill you anyway. Starting . . . now.”

  At three seconds, Hugh signed, He is too afraid of Lucifer, or that we will be able to stop the nosferatu with what we learn. There is no point in this.

  You have no stomach, Guardian, she signed back with a scowl. “Eight,” she sang out, “nine . . .”

  “You do not kill me,” Beelzebub growled, “and I answer your questions.”

  “Done,” Lilith said, and she glanced at Hugh, her eyes bright with gratitude. They hadn’t planned on pricking his vanity with that short exchange, but it had worked. “Why do you need Hugh to be a part of the ritual?”

  “Let me up first. I have agreed to answer.”

  “But you did not agree to stay in this room, and letting you up was not part of the bargain.” Lilith smiled. “You don’t do this very often, do you?”

  Beelzebub’s eyes flared at the insult. “The book is an offense to the Morningstar.”

  “Yes, but that is not why you need him for the ritual. You must answer the question asked.”

  “But I did not say truthfully.”

  Lilith’s jaw worked, and though she hid her frustration well, Hugh knew she was berating herself for her carelessness in the bargain. A result of the quickness with which she’d had to make it, and an easy mistake, but not one she would take lightly. Hugh could read truth—and there had been truth in the response about the book—but Beelzebub had twisted the bargain so that the question had to be asked perfectly. And without knowing Lucifer’s plan, Lilith did not know the questions to ask.

  Hugh did. “Is it because my blood resonates with Caelum’s Gate?”

  “No.”

  “Lie.” He glanced up at Lilith, saw her surprise and the subtle tightening of her mouth. He shouldn’t have kept it from her, had hoped it wouldn’t be true—hadn’t even thought of it before she’d recalled him to the resonance with the Gates. “The ritual couldn’t grant access through the Gates, because it requires self-sacrifice in the process of saving the life of another,” he said aloud, thinking it through. “So Javier, Ian, and Sue . . . have any others been taken?”

  “No.”

  Hugh nodded—that was truth and in keeping with the wager. “Yet you fought Guardians, must have had their blood. Is it necessary to take it from a human?”

  “Yes.”

  “Truth,” Hugh said. “Do I have to submit to the ritual willingly?”

  Beelzebub’s hand clenched. “No.”

  “Lie.” He felt Lilith’s gaze on him. “Another bolt through his left arm; he can move his fingers. Do they need Lilith’s blood to get through Hell’s Gate?”

  “No.” He smiled tightly as she aimed and fired, his fangs gleaming. “I will enjoy tearing you both apart.”

  Hugh glanced at Lilith as she reloaded the crossbow. “That was truth. Only ask questions he has to answer yes or no; be as specific as possible.”

  A long process, but Lilith was able to tease
out the details of the ritual; she’d been correct in most of it. The nosferatu drank simultaneously, so that there would be no betrayal or inequality among them. One was chosen randomly to receive the full transformation; the others took sips to increase their resistance to sunlight and the daysleep. The bodies had been used to fuel the investigation against Hugh, but the nosferatu had reclaimed them for their cache, so there would be no decay in the symbols. There was no evidence that the body’s decay would weaken the transformation, but they did not completely trust Lucifer’s ritual.

  Impossible to narrow down the location of the nest, however, except that it was in the Inner Sunset district. No use asking street by street; they couldn’t attack the nest anyway.

  Lilith tried another thread. “Does Lucifer plan to use Hugh’s affection for me to convince him to submit to the ritual?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugh nodded. She looked at him thoughtfully, then asked, “Does Lucifer plan to let the nosferatu kill me?”

  “Yes,” he hissed. “And I will enjoy watching it.”

  Hugh gave a slight nod, and she said, “Am I to be subjected to the same ritual?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lie.” A mocking smile curved Hugh’s mouth. “Are you humiliated, knowing that two humans have gotten the best of you?” This was taking too much time, but much more humiliation, and he did not think Beelzebub would bother with one-word replies. The demon was enraged; Hugh doubted he could keep his control much longer.

  “No.”

  Lilith laughed aloud. “I don’t need his truth-telling to know that for a lie.” She shifted her weight, her heels digging into his stomach. “I’m a gesture of Lucifer’s trustworthiness, aren’t I? Because I killed the nosferatu, and knew too much about Moloch, the nosferatu demanded he prove himself by delivering his ‘daughter’ to them.”

  “You are an abomination, a corruption of our kind,” Beelzebub said. “You are no loss to us.”

  Truth, but Hugh did not confirm it. “Then why have they not come for you? If you are not to be subjected to the ritual, an attack on you does not break the terms of the wager,” Hugh said instead, looking at Lilith.

  She bit her lip, then asked, “But they are waiting because of the wager, aren’t they? If there is a chance I can open Caelum, and Lucifer will triumph over Michael, he would take it. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  When Hugh nodded, she grinned. “I guess the golden boy isn’t such an asshole. He tried to give us a week.” Her grin quickly faded as Beelzebub growled again. Her eyes were dark and haunted when she asked, “Do you know of anything that could persuade Lucifer to release me from my bargain?”

  Beelzebub’s anger quickly changed to laughter. “Did I know anything that had that much sway over him, halfling, I would have used it to secure the throne. He has never released anyone from a bargain, and I know of nothing that could persuade him. It is simple: you kill your human, or you spend eternity frozen in the field—and I will spend eternity shattering your face to pieces and waiting for it to reform so that I may do it again.”

  Hugh’s breath stilled. Lilith’s face was pale, but she lifted her gaze to his and waited. “He speaks true,” he said, forcing it past the tightness in his throat.

  Her eyes closed in defeat.

  “Do you have anything more to ask him?”

  She shook her head. “You?”

  “No. Step away from him.” Cold descended over him as she stood, backed away.

  “Don’t let him up,” she said. “The bargain doesn’t require that we release him. Better to get away while he’s still weak.” Then she realized his intent, and she drew a sharp breath.

  Beelzebub’s eyes went wide. “The bargain—”

  “Was that Lilith wouldn’t kill you.” Hugh stared down at the demon, his veins like ice. “You made the bargain too quickly and foolishly. The only choice you have is between the mercy of the axe or the hellhound.”

  “Coward! You will slay me when I am defenseless!”

  “Not a slaying, but an execution. Lilith’s Punishment. Ian. Javier. Sue. And countless other offenses which human law can never redress.”

  “You dare!” he roared. “You are nothing, a worm, and you dare execute me? For the lives of equally worthless worms? Do you know that they cursed your name, human? That I took your form when Moloch cut into the first, and the worm begged for mercy as I laughed. That Moloch wore your face as he took the woman, and the second boy, and that they screamed when the nosferatu fed from them. And I laughed and enjoyed every moment of their pain. That they cursed you, and begged, and pleaded. But she never begged, though for a hundred years I tore pieces from her. Did you know that she dreamed of you, of Caelum? That she waited for you to save her and take her to that place but you never came—”

  Hugh’s foot cut off the rest of the tirade. “Do you have any unfulfilled bargains?”

  “Yes.” An angry hiss.

  Truth. “Then this will not be freedom.” And he did not feel sorry for it, but he was cold . . . numb. He hardly felt the vibration as the axe dug into the floorboards.

  But her hands were warm on his shoulders, even through his clothes; his skin burned where she touched him when she pulled him to his feet. “Thank you. I would have done it were it not for the bargain,” she said quietly. “But I would have let Sir Pup eat a few pieces first.”

  He buried his face in her hair, held her tight against him. “You don’t have to make me laugh. I do not like how it was done, but it had to be done.”

  And letting her go was difficult, but it also had to be done. He leaned over, picked up the axe. Wiped it off on the carpet and tossed it to Sir Pup. “Do you want his swords?”

  She glanced over at the two swords Beelzebub had dropped and shook her head. “We could vanish the body. Carry it out and dump it over the bridge.”

  He wrapped his hand around the bolt in Beelzebub’s right shoulder, pulled it out. “Why change our course at this point?”

  “We knew we might have to kill him,” she said. “But we did not know it would be this; we assumed it would be fighting, that he would have shifted into his demon form, and that it would clearly be self-defense.” She gestured to the body, and he looked at the form beneath his hands. Except for the scales and fangs, Beelzebub looked human—and no one could mistake the wounds nor the precise decapitation as the result of a battle. “We understand this—but I don’t know that they can.”

  He quietly removed the rest of the quarrels, let Sir Pup vanish them. There was nothing to wipe his hands on, so he let the hellhound lick them clean. “There is blood on the carpet,” he said finally. “We were seen entering the office. Even if we remove the body, there will be no doubt we did something to him. With the body we have some explanation; without it we have none.”

  “We don’t need an explanation, we need a fucking miracle.” With a growl of frustration, she kicked a chair, then turned and glared at the demon’s head as if she’d like to punt that next. He bowed his head to hide his laughter, and after a moment she smiled and sighed. “All right. What’s the worst that can happen? You are thrown in jail and someone makes you his bitch, and I go to Hell. You call Taylor and Preston, I’ll go get Bradshaw. I should warn you, though: I’m not his favorite person in the world.”

  Why wasn’t he surprised? “This was your idea,” he reminded her, smiling. The telephone was on the floor beside the desk; Beelzebub had knocked it down when he’d charged them. Hugh replaced the receiver in its cradle, sat on the edge of the desk, and dug in his pocket for the number.

  “Well, the next time I have such an absurd one, stab me.”

  “I will,” he said, and she threw a grin over her shoulder as she opened the door.

  A man stood there, fist poised to knock. Her eyes rounded in surprise. Swearing, she quickly grabbed his tie and hauled him into the room, slamming the door.

  Hugh slowly rose to his feet. The agent’s eyes widened as he saw Beelzebub, then narrowed when
they focused on Hugh. Recognition filled his expression.

  “Fuck. Fuck.” She pushed him up against the wall, his feet dangling ten inches off the floor. Though he outweighed her by at least seventy pounds, she lifted him as easily as Hugh would his cat. “Dammit, I was supposed to have time to explain, to get you ready for this.”

  Bradshaw. Hugh studied the agent’s shaved head, the lean, dark face. The other man’s hands hung relaxed at his sides; no fear in him, despite Lilith’s display of strength and the demon on the floor. “I don’t think he needs to be prepared,” he said.

  Her head whipped around, and she stared at him. “What do you—” Realization flared in her eyes. A long stream of curses flowed. She finally finished, out of breath: “A Guardian!”

  “You asked for a miracle,” Hugh said dryly. In spite of his tone, relief flooded him; it was more than he could have hoped for, wished for. They weren’t completely alone in this.

  She clenched her jaw, then dropped Bradshaw to the floor. “Someone up there hates me.”

  “It was someone Below,” Bradshaw said, and straightened his tie. “Smith’s assistant called from a pay phone, because she’d ‘forgotten’ to tell me that he’d wanted to see me before I left for the evening.” He looked past Lilith to Beelzebub’s decapitated form. “I guess she lied.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Lilith knew she was extraordinarily lucky—but it was still humiliating. How could she not have sensed the truth? If she and Bradshaw had only a brief meeting, she could have excused herself . . . but ten years’ acquaintance? And Hugh had been able to tell within seconds.

  She glanced over at them; the two men stood near Beelzebub’s body as Hugh recounted everything the demon had revealed about the ritual.

  Sir Pup nudged her knee, and she leaned down to scratch his ears, frowning. The hellhound hadn’t known, either—he was supposed to have given warning if anyone came to the door, but he hadn’t sensed Bradshaw’s approach.

  “It’s your Gift,” she realized aloud. “A perfect psychic mask, so that you can pass as human.” And like Selah’s teleporting, the Guardians had hidden knowledge of the ability from demons, the better to use it to their advantage—and safety. Michael wouldn’t place one of his Guardians in such a dangerous position unless Bradshaw had some protection. If he hadn’t been able to pass as human, Beelzebub would have had him killed.