by Jenny McKane
“What I was trying to say before you attempted to rob my entire body of its blood supply,” he said, making her laugh, “was that what you did was damn impressive. That thing would have put me into the next zip code if it’d gotten its paws on me. Sin, too, would have been a goner. It’s a bigger predator than our demons are—we would have had our asses handed to us. So, thank you.”
The words meant so much to Sunny, who struggled with self-doubt and anxiety about every move she made on this journey.
“Thanks for saying that,” she said, pushing at his hands when he stopped moving them to catch a glimpse of her chest again. “Those blades come in handy.”
That got a laugh out of Gideon.
“Yep,” he agreed. “But the cambion was right when he said you were terrifying with those things.”
She grinned, taking it as a compliment.
*****
Metatron’s angelic buddy came up with what he’d been sent to find in that mystic angelic-realm library in the sky.
“Not quite that cartoonish,” Metatron admonished with a sly grin when Sunny let her imagination run wild.
The angelic realm wasn’t like the demonic realm—humans couldn’t just go traipsing in there on a tourist visa.
“Not even the last Solomon?” She batted her eyelashes at the archangel prettily in hopes of swaying him. He’d described the archives and library he used to command when he served as official scribe and it was all Sunny could do to not drool as he described the square mileage of books and knowledge housed in the realm.
“Not even you, Rosie.”
The archangels had taken to calling her Rosie, a nod and jab at the term she so hated: the rarest of roses. She grumbled as she stomped away.
Later that morning, Metatron returned from whatever meeting he’d gone to with a brown leather satchel over his arm and grinning like a fool.
“Falia found it!” He was practically singing.
Sunny was the only one downstairs at the moment, the rest of the team was upstairs sleeping or reading or doing whatever guys did.
“What did your angel friend find?” Sunny was intrigued, knowing it came from the celestial library in the sky.
“Again, you’ve clearly got the wrong idea,” Metatron said when Sunny repeated her version of the archives. “It’s a concrete building with no windows. Not some Utopia for book nerds.”
“You have your version of the truth and I have my version of the fantasy, Metatron,” she said with a little tilt of her head. “Don’t spoil it for me.”
Rolling his eyes, Metatron pulled the satchel from his shoulder and opened the clasp before sliding out a book with a heavy green leather cover. There was an open eye insignia on the cover that immediately gave Sunny the creeps, causing her to take a step backwards.
“I’ve heard it upon good authority that your natural reaction to this book is expected,” Metatron said quietly, mostly to himself. “In the world of power and magic, this book is a predator.”
Not one to be intimidated by a book, she took a deep breath and stepped forward, finding a chair next to Metatron just as he opened the tome.
“This is the Ars Goetia,” he said quietly, holding the book open with just his two forefingers, as though handling the thing too much made him nervous. “The first book in what is called The Lesser Key of King Solomon—basically the most famous grimoire ever created.”
The term grimoire was new to Sunny, so Metatron had to explain.
“Think of it as a magic textbook,” he said. “A key to what’s necessary, in our case, to summon and control demons. Solomon supposedly had one of his advisors keep track of all their developments as he learned and exercised his powers. The result of all that scrupulous note taking is this book.”
“This will tell me how to summon a legion of demons of my very own?” Sunny had meant to be funny, but when Metatron nodded slowly, all signs of humor gone from his face, she swallowed hard.
“Essentially, you’re right. That’s what the goal of using the Seal is—to command a legion of demons powerful enough to stop Death itself,” Metatron said.
“What about angels? Aren’t there angels strong enough to stop Death?”
That part of the story still bothered her. Why were the angels so absent from the unfolding danger?
“A few,” he admitted with a thoughtful nod. “But they are not being called forth. They aren’t being summoned and they aren’t rising on their own. There’s some sort of block preventing the angelic realm from taking this danger seriously.”
It was similar to what Gabriel had said. His visions, which should have had warning bells in every angelic realm sounding, were largely ignored because of class and race issues rampant in the angelic realm. As an archangel, Gabriel was a bottom dweller and a purveyor of menial tasks. Why should a seraph heed the cries of such a lowly creature?
While it was true that angels like Rub, Michael’s Cherub pal, were sometimes employed by archangels, they were rare. The truth of the matter was that the only angels that concerned themselves wholly with the future and safety of mankind were traditionally the archangels. And even now, they only had two on their side.
The more she allowed herself to think of it all, the more frustrated Sunny became.
To hell with the angels, she thought, the very construct of the sentence making her laugh. Their little suicide squad would figure it all out somehow.
She hoped, anyway.
Chapter Twenty
“Asmodeus, the King of All Guardian Demons, is your best bet,” Metatron said as they pored over the book.
Throughout the span of the day, the rest of the guys dropped in and discussed what they were researching, offering quips, opinions, and questions of their own—but really, it was Sunny and Metatron doing the research and setting the foundations for what was to come.
Gabriel spent a large amount of time, too, but he did a lot of listening, as the book contained more than he would ever know about demons.
“He’s a gambler,” Metatron said. They were studying Asmodeus, learning the ins and outs of the demon who grew to become Solomon’s right-hand advisor. “Honestly. It says right here, king of lust and gambling.”
Metatron pored over the words and Sunny leaned close to see them, also.
“Makes sense, I guess,” Sunny said, thinking about it.
“How so? How does that tie into his role with Solomon?” Gabriel was sitting across from them at the moment and participating as much as he could.
“Well, think about it,” Sunny replied, looking toward the window as her thoughts kept pace. “Demons are power seekers—even the peaceful ones. There are strong hierarchies in the demon realm and either they’re trying to protect the hierarchy or edit it. Solomon was probably Asmodeus’ big gamble—that tying his fate with this great human ruler could catapult him into whatever position he was eyeing.”
Metatron looked down at the book and nodded.
“From what I can see, it worked,” he said, pointing to a passage. “Says right here he’s listed as chief among the 72. The archdemon to the four generals.”
So, Asmodeus was a gambler at heart and a game player. Sunny filed the fact away, knowing full well she was going to have to stay on her toes when dealing with a game player.
The Seal was on the table in front of Sunny, but she was still nervous around it and touched it as little as possible. Metatron had given her a small black silk pouch to keep it in and she stowed it away at the bottom of her suitcase until taking it out that morning.
She felt a little like a Hobbit when she looked at the thing. One ring to rule them all and all that. She’d made the joke to Gabriel who didn’t find it funny in the least. Thank goodness for Sin, who’d snorted beer out of his nose when she called herself Frodo and the rest of them the Fellowship of the Ring.
“I’m way hotter than Pip or Merrin,” Sin complained.
As usual, Eli just rolled his eyes. “I’m totally the hot elf,” he said before turning to the archangels. �
�But which one of you is Gandalf?”
“He’s Gandalf the Grey, obviously,” Metatron said, pointing to Gabriel. “And I’m Gandalf the White.”
He referred to his beard and salt and pepper hair.
“Grey, idiot,” Gabriel muttered. “Your beard and your hair are grey.”
Sunny chuckled.
But it was harder to laugh now that the reality had set back in. The time was getting closer for her to pick the ring up and put it on her finger—and to command a legion of demons that she’d have no idea how to control.
“I think our best bet is to summon Asmodeus,” Metatron said, and Gabriel nodded in agreement. “It’s in his best interest to help you as the last Solomon, as it might be the key to ending his sentence.”
Metatron was talking about the fact that Asmodeus was basically stuck in an eternity-long dirt nap for the way things ended with Solomon. Though the details were scarce in the history texts Metatron was able to find, the picture that Solomon’s folly (with a dash of demonic double cross) had spelled disaster for her ancestor. And because Asmodeus had tied his life in with Solomon’s, the betrayal and death of the ruler had bound him into a sleepless death ever since.
The archangels were of a mind that Sunny would be able to wake him and by performing (and completing) a good deed of this caliber for the last remaining Solomon, Asmodeus would be able to return to his former status as chief among the 72 most powerful demons in the demon realm.
“You should just call it Hell,” Gabriel said dryly. “Demonic realm makes it sound a little too poetic.”
Sunny frowned at the archangel. “Have you ever been there?”
He shook his head and gave her a look that all but screamed duh.
“It’s not all fire and brimstone,” she said, looking back to the book that sat directly in front of her. Metatron had gone to grab a drink.
“I’ll be sure to visit sometime when the borders are opened, and angel visas are accepted,” he quipped.
He was smiling and Sunny was sure he meant it as a joke, but the hard lines in his face were still there. He wasn’t the same archangel she remembered and sometimes she missed the easy-going friend she’d had all those months ago—when he pretended to be a college student that was interested in hanging out with her just for the sake of hanging out.
“I’m just saying,” she shot back, unable to stop herself. “You want to use the word Hell because of its connotation and preconceived appearances, all written and edited by angels. But having been there, and having survived Azrael’s keep, I do remember seeing villages where demons worked hard to stay alive and take care of their own. Those demons aren’t unlike humans in this realm. There are bad ones, sure, but there are also plenty of Plaxos and Ninos.”
Gabriel didn’t respond to her and instead gave her a noncommittal shrug. As much as she felt like throwing the book at his fat head, she tamped down on her temper and turned her attention back to her studies.
So Asmodeus obviously had a little skin in the game. Would the same be said for the other 71 demons that would be called on?
Nobody knew for certain whether they’d been put into the sleep state as well after Solomon died—the only thing they all knew for certain was that names like Baal and Primlas were known and often whispered about, but demons of that caliber had not been seen in a millennium, it seemed.
Had they been set free? Killed? Imprisoned for failing Solomon?
That was a question the grimoire couldn’t answer, and neither could her two archangel advisors. Sunny added it to the list of un-answerable questions. She had quite the collection now.
Metatron returned with a glass of water and a cell phone to his ear.
“No words on the Eastern stones, though?” He waited for the answer on the other end. “Okay, then. Let me know when you find more.”
He ended the call with a click. “Good news and bad news,” he said before taking a long, dramatic sip. “We know where two summoning stones are, possibly three. We can’t, however, find any remaining Eastern summoning stones anywhere.”
Sunny’s heart sank.
The objective, once she accepted the mission, was fairly sequential and straight forward. The first step was to summon Asmodeus and present him with the opportunity to break free of his prison and help them summon and employ the four generals.
Once Asmodeus was on board, and they were hoping he’d provide ample input once they got going, as they were mostly shooting in the dark at the moment, they’d have to travel to different summoning stones to bring forth the generals. Each general was associated with a different cardinal direction. In ancient times, summoning stones were common and frequently used—each major human hub had their own set of cardinal summoning stones. But over time, as the 72 had been lost to whatever prison held them, the summoning stones were not used, forgotten, and left to crumble. Few remained and the direction of East, in particular, was particularly hard to narrow down.
The gang was preparing for an epic road trip, it seemed, and while Sunny was excited to see places she’d never been to before, she also knew that they were abandoning their work in Chicago with the portal demons. Camael would likely get a foothold in the Windy City that the humans would be unable to break once it got strong enough, and it gnawed at Sunny that they had to do this for the greater good.
The greater good. She snorted at the thought. There was no longer a True North when it came to who to fight for, who to save, who was worthy. It was all subjective and prone to whim as they made their plans.
“I think the Seal has been out of use for so long, you’re not going to be able to fire it up on your own in the living room here,” Metatron said a few hours later as he flipped through pages. “It’s almost like a car battery, it seems. Once you fire it up and get it going, it’s fine. But starting it from thousands of years of non-use? We’re going to need a jump of some sort.”
Sunny wondered with a snicker if there were such thing as demonic ring jumper cables. Gabriel raised his eyes at her little laugh, but she just shook her head.
“What can jump start a ring like this?”
She had visions of fire, brimstone, and virgin sacrifices. She nearly fell out of her chair when Metatron offered her a much simpler method.
“Water,” he said. “Activating it with a large enough body of water should get it going nice and strong.”
Body of water? Sunny thought about it.
“Would a Great Lake be a big enough body of water?”
Chapter Twenty-one
“This place is colder than Siberia, right?”
Sin was complaining about the cold for the fifth time in the span of 15 minutes.
“I swear Mother Russia herself can’t be colder than this,” he continued and screamed in agony as another blast of cold, icy wind off Lake Michigan cut across their group. Despite the big, heavy parkas they’d procured, it was still painfully cold that morning.
“What sun-loving lust demon in his right mind would come here, no matter the summons?” Sin had heard a few rumors about the likes of Asmodeus over the years—namely that he loved women, tropical climates, and sex.
“We could be related, you know,” he had joked. “I happen to love those three things myself.”
For one of the biggest moments in her life, Sunny just shook her head at their assembled troop.
The archangels were staying in the front seat of the SUV for as long as they could, neither wanting to brave the raging wind and freezing temperatures while Sunny worked up the nerve to put the ring on her middle finger and say the words necessary to start her role as the last Solomon.
She’d been waffling at the water’s edge for nearly 45 minutes now, and she knew her friends were going to start getting impatient soon.
They’d practically been saints up until this point.
“I’m here with you,” Gideon said, standing next to her. He didn’t crowd her space, but he was letting her know she was supported. Even Sin was doing the same thing with his jo
kes, trying to lighten the mood. Eli was kneeling down beside her, poking at the ground with a stick he had found.
Eli was the one who was least in favor of this option to save the world.
“You’re not worth the risk,” he’d said just once, in a group discussion about the pros and cons of using the Seal of Solomon and the demons behind it.
Eli had also been against her building up obsidian resistance when she trained to go to Hell. For knowing him less than a year now, he was the most protective of her and sometimes it made her feel like he didn’t trust in her abilities.
For now, he was wise enough to just pout and not give voice to any insecurities he was feeling.
“I feel like I should have my phone out for a selfie,” Sin was saying, patting down his coat pockets for his phone.
“For what?” Gideon asked, his eyebrow raised.
“For the moment the Alpha of the guardian demons appears,” Sin said with a tone of duh sprinkled in. “Any demon, or half or quarter demon, worth his salt would be stoked to get a pic with Asmodeus himself.”
Sin was thinking of his Facebook group again and how they’d fawn all over him.
“You know you can’t post something like that right now, don’t you?” Eli stood and spoke to Sin. “This is all on the hush for as long as we can keep it that way. Your little conspiracy theory demons will freak the hell out when the 72 start to rise and we’ll have chaos on our hands. It’ll also probably tip off whoever’s fulfilling the role of Death these days.”
Something in Sunny’s stomach said Death already knew what they were up to. That Death seemed to be a step or two ahead of them at every turn.
Pushing the thoughts away, she hugged her arms tighter around her chest, closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath of cold air.
“Okay,” she finally said, not opening her eyes. She knew the three men around her stilled and weren’t moving, waiting for what she said next. “It’s time, guys. Get the archangels.”
Someone, probably Eli, moved away and she heard the heavy footsteps retreating. She took long, deep breaths to calm her nerves and opened her eyes as she heard Metatron and Gabriel arrive.