Cipher

by Larissa Ione

  The demons, who looked and smelled like bloated human corpses wrapped in burlap bags, shuffled across the ice floor and fur rugs toward the door. Before this, Cipher had seen very little of Bael’s castle, but now it seemed that everything had been constructed of either ice, bones, or fur, and nothing melted...not even the working fireplaces made of ice.

  Even the door they’d come through had been constructed of opaque, charcoal-colored ice. According to Lyre, Bael missed the extravagant crystal palaces in Heaven, so he’d created a replica of his former home out of enchanted ice that could withstand the intense heat from the nearby volcano and the moat filled with lava.

  Cipher doubted the stronghold was a genuine, exact replica, though, given the scenes of torture carved into the walls by an incredibly talented artist. Everything was so...graphic. Had Bael been a sick, twisted bastard as a fully-haloed angel too?

  Cipher waited until the door closed behind the ugly bastards to fire up his baby. When he did, the whirr of the CPU fan damn near made him orgasm.

  But it wouldn’t have been like the one Lyre gave you.

  He nearly groaned out loud at that thought.

  Lyre stood nearby, her lush midnight hair tied up in a severe high knot, her mouth little more than a grim slash. She didn’t seem nearly as excited to be here as he’d figured she’d be. Bael was going to reward her for this, give her a promotion or some shit. She should be grinning like Flail did when she caused him pain. Instead, ever since Lyre picked him up after he’d showered and dressed, she’d been distracted. Maybe a little sad.

  Not that he cared.

  When the password screen popped up, he covertly turned the laptop away from Lyre’s prying eyes and entered the code. A code that also needed to be entered with his fingers, and none other. It was the reason none of Bael’s minions had been able to break into it.

  They hadn’t known about the tech he’d both developed and installed on his computer.

  Dumbasses.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to do this.” Lyre handed him a flash drive she’d dug out of her side pants pocket.

  “I’m tired of living in a deep freeze,” he said, and that wasn’t a lie.

  But mainly...mainly he needed to buy a little freedom. And some goodwill. He wasn’t a fool—Lyre and Flail were in a competition to see who could get the list from him first. He wouldn’t save Flail if she were being roasted over a Neethul fire pit, but if he helped out Lyre he might get something in return. A favor, or maybe even a measure of trust, which he could exploit when the time came.

  If he played his cards right, he could actually escape this hell.

  The screen flashed, giving him an option to select one of three private blocks on his hard drive. His gaming partition wasn’t protected, but he didn’t need that one. He’d password-protected the second partition, but he’d set it up so that if, on the insanely minuscule chance someone got into his computer, they’d eventually be able to get into his basic work files. There was some sensitive shit in there about Azagoth’s realm and tech, but nothing so critical that Sheoul-gra would be compromised if it were to get out. There were also some nasty booby traps and a computer virus that would execute once the file was downloaded to another computer.

  The third partition required blood to open. Blood and a password spoken only in his voice as he typed it.

  “I need you to turn around,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to look at your ass.”

  She blinked. “Really?”

  Yes, but that wasn’t the main reason. Also, she was seriously gullible. How had she survived this long in Sheoul?

  “Do you want the list or not?”

  Rolling her eyes, she spun on her heel and faced the wall. “Oh, and in case you had any ideas about contacting Azagoth or your friends, think again. The ice in this room blocks all electronic signals, including WIFI.”

  Fuck. There went a major piece of his plan. The heroes ride in and save the day part. Guess he was on his own.

  Unfortunately, lack of access also meant he couldn’t disable Bael’s security systems, which would render escape far more difficult, especially since Bael had embraced tech in ways other wretched warlords in Sheoul hadn’t. Most still lived in the Dark Ages.

  Cursing silently, he nicked his thumb with a fang and smeared a drop of blood on the touchpad. His fingers settled over keys so worn that most of the letters had faded as he whispered, “Han Solo.”

  Take that, Hawkyn. Star Wars beats Star Trek. Every. Single. Time.

  Hawk would probably break his jaw for that, but it would be worth it.

  A twinge of regret pricked him. He missed Sheoul-gra. He missed his buddy. Missed all of his friends.

  But they were looking for him. He knew they were.

  Doubt came roaring in on the heels of that thought. Hawkyn, Maddox, Journey, Emerico...they had been his anchors after his fall from Heaven, but as Hawkyn liked to say—taken from Trek, of course, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one.”

  Which meant that if the risk of rescuing him was too great, he’d become a sacrifice for the greater good. It made sense. But that didn’t make it suck any less.

  “Can I turn around?” Lyre’s smoky voice startled him into the present.

  “No.”

  He tapped on the keyboard, the sound of clicking keys as satisfying as a cold beer on a hot day. He even typed out a few unnecessary strokes just so he could hear the sweet music as he brought up the files containing all the research he’d done to find Azagoth’s children in the human realm.

  The thousands of files on hundreds of kids had been organized into age groups, with the largest collection being the oldest of his Memitim children. The plan had been to bring in the oldest first, allowing them to get the lay of the land and get settled in before bringing in the younger ones who would need more care. Before Cipher was kidnapped and dragged to Sheoul, they’d been in phase one of the operation.

  It had been several months since then. The oldest children should have been collected and safely ensconced inside Azagoth’s realm by now. He’d give Bael that list, and while the bastard’s minions were hunting the children, not knowing they’d already been gathered and taken to Azagoth, he could be plotting an escape.

  He punched a few keys, and the list popped up. Forty names, kids in their teens spread out all over the world. Hopefully, all were safe.

  Please let them be safe.

  He couldn’t be responsible for the death of a single one of them.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He started, glancing over at Lyre, who had turned around at some point. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You look like you’re having second thoughts.”

  “Second thoughts?” He snorted. “About giving a monster access to the Grim Reaper’s innocent children so he can do God knows what with them? No, it’s really no problem.”

  “Innocent? Memitim?” She waved her hand in dismissal. “They’re warriors, same as every other angel.”

  He frowned at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.” Her long fingers drifted to the blade she always kept at her hip, and he suddenly wondered how good she was with the thing. Was it for show, or could she really dance with danger? “I mean, they aren’t full angels with wings, but they do have powerful fighting abilities.”

  She didn’t know. She truly didn’t have a clue. “This isn’t a list of adult Memitim. It’s a list of the little ones still living in the human realm with human parents. They don’t even know they’re angels, and they don’t get their powers until they’re adults.”

  “What?” Her fingers faltered. “I didn’t know it was those ones. I thought he wanted Memitim.”

  “Would it make a difference?”

  She gave a haughty sniff as she looked down at her boot. “Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” he muttered. “Do you know what he plans to do with them?”

  “No i
dea.” She glanced back up at him. “So what is this list anyway? I mean, obviously it’s a list of his children, but why is there a list of them at all? Doesn’t Azagoth have thousands of them?”

  Many thousands. The dude had been prolific over the eons. “You know how he sired over seventy children a year for thousands of years to create Memitim, right?”

  “Of course. That’s basic angel knowledge.” She gazed up at the ceiling as she recited Azagothic knowledge straight from the history tomes. “His children, born to full angel mothers, are given to human families to raise. They don’t learn the truth until adulthood, when they’re told the truth about their roots. As their new angelic powers emerge, they’re trained to be earthbound guardian angels, working to keep special humans called Primori safe until they eventually earn their wings and ascend to Heaven.” A fierce blush spread across her cheeks when she saw him staring at her. “He was one of my favorite historical characters, so he was my focus in my history courses and research.”

  “Research?”

  “It was sort of my job when I was an angel.”

  Sounded boring as fuck.

  “Yeah, well, now that he’s mated, he’s no longer siring Memitim and wants to bring all children who remain in the human realm to Sheoul-gra.” Cipher casually deleted all remaining files related to Azagoth’s kids and then ran the virtual shredder program he’d developed. “It took forever for Heaven to agree, but they finally gave him the names and last known locations of those children.”

  “Hmm.” Lyre’s pert nose wiggled as she ran the information through her processor. It was cuter than it should be. “Maybe he’s going to blackmail Azagoth for something. He’s had a bug up his ass about Azagoth ever since I arrived.”

  Interesting. “And when was that?”

  “Not long after the near-apocalypse.”

  Which was just a few years ago. “That explains it,” he murmured as he looked back down at his screen.

  “Explains what?”

  “Why you don’t radiate evil.” He deleted more files related to Azagoth and his realm. “You’re not completely saturated with it yet.”

  “I am too,” she said, a little defensively. She might as well have stomped her foot, and he gave her a skeptical glance.

  “How much time did you spend as an Unfallen?” he asked.

  “None.”

  “None?” Ooh, he should probably delete that porn file. “You were captured and dragged down here right away?”

  “No.” Her sterling eyes flashed as her defenses came up. This seemed to be a touchy subject for her. He’d have to file that information away. “I came of my own free will.”

  So she was another Flail. She’d wanted to expose herself to the evils of Sheoul. He had absolutely no respect for shitbags like that.

  Although he had to admit that she didn’t strike him as being anything like Flail. Aside from wanting the list of Azagoth’s minor children, anyway. Not that it mattered. He was going to get out of this hellhole and would hopefully never see either of them again.

  He jammed the flash drive into the USB port and downloaded the file containing the names that would hopefully buy him some time.

  “Done.” His gut churned as he unplugged the drive and held it out to Lyre. “Tell Bael to shove it up his ass.”

  The merest hint of a smile teased her lips. He shouldn’t find it sexy, but he did. A lot.

  “As much as I’d love to say that, I’ll let you tell him yourself.” She bounced the little drive in her palm, and her expression grew serious. “Cipher, I hope whatever you put on this drive isn’t a trick, because if it is, we’ll both pay with blood. And when I recover, I’ll show you just how saturated with evil I am.”

  He doubted the threat would have sounded as cute coming from Flail. But in any case, she didn’t have anything to worry about. There were no tricks on the flash drive.

  At least, none Bael would find out about until Cipher was long gone.

  Chapter Nine

  The flash drive felt like victory in Lyre’s palm as she walked Cipher toward Bael’s throne room. Take that, Flail. I won. Big time.

  She glanced over at Cipher, whose expression was stony. Unreadable.

  But it hadn’t been that way when he’d downloaded the list or talked about the names on it.

  Names of children.

  An unexpected wave of guilt engulfed her. She’d known Bael and Moloc were after Memitim, trained adults who could handle themselves. But the revelation that these were young children left her spinning and struggling to conceal it.

  Dammit, it shouldn’t bother her. She was a fallen angel. A willing fallen angel. She should be sweating evil from her very pores by now. Evil that would allow her to not care. To maybe even enjoy the suffering of innocents.

  Instead, she was slow-walking the damned list and wondering what Bael was going to do with it.

  But she couldn’t stall forever, and they finally arrived at Bael’s residence. Two sleek, black-haired Canis demons, drool dripping from their canine jaws, let them inside.

  Bael and his brother Moloc were huddled over a map with Rancor, a female fallen angel who had gained control of the Horun region after a coup backed by the brothers.

  All three fallen angels had sworn allegiance to Revenant, but before Lyre had fallen, she’d uncovered evidence that they were secretly working against him. At the time and as a historian, she’d been fascinated by the political dynamics in Sheoul, even as she was disturbed by the Satan loyalists. The Powers That Be in Heaven didn’t openly admit they were backing Revenant as the King of Hell, but he was definitely preferable over the imprisoned alternative.

  But as a fallen angel betrayed by her Heavenly family, Lyre had intentionally chosen to sell her services to an enemy of Revenant. Hell, she’d come to Bael within an hour of falling.

  She’d regretted it by the next day.

  But there was no point in dwelling on the consequences of her rash decision, and as long as she got what she wanted out of the deal, she’d consider her choice well made.

  Probably.

  The three fallen angels turned as a unit to face her and Cipher.

  As she held out the flash drive, Bael grinned, his fangs glistening in air made smoky by the torch sconces. He had access to the best technology demons could devise or steal from humans, but his taste in decor ran medieval drab.

  “Finally.” He pinned Cipher with an intense stare. “You’re ready to serve me.”

  “Serve you?” Cipher laughed, and Lyre cringed. Bael didn’t appreciate being mocked. “You don’t deserve my loyalty. I’ll serve Sheoul’s cause, but not yours.”

  Bael’s lip curled, revealing wicked, lion-sized fangs. “Sheoul’s cause is my cause.”

  “Then tell me how my list is going to be used.” Cipher’s deep voice was calm, steady, but his gaze smoldered with hate. “I can’t imagine that hurting Azagoth’s children is in Sheoul’s ultimate best interest.”

  “That,” Bael said, “is none of your concern.” He fingered the drive. “If this is a trick, I’ll kill you.”

  “Fuck you,” Cipher growled, and this time Lyre nodded in approval. Bael might not like being mocked, but he respected good, old-fashioned aggression. “Those are the names of all Azagoth’s children who remain in the human realm.”

  Bael tossed the drive to his brother Moloc, who plugged it into a tablet on a nearby table. After a moment, Moloc looked over. “There are only forty names here. How can there be so few?”

  “Most of the children have already been gathered and taken to Sheoul-gra.”

  “If you’re lying—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Cipher tucked his hands in his jeans pockets, all casual, as if he wasn’t standing in a nest of vipers. “You’ll kill me.”

  Moloc’s dark eyes went as black as a poisonous Sheoulin rose. Of the two brothers, he was the calmest, the one least prone to irrational actions. But he was also the smartest, which made him far more terrifying than Bael.

&
nbsp; “Killing you will only be the beginning,” he said as he shoved the tablet aside.

  Rancor eyed Cipher the way Lyre eyed a juicy burger, and the creepy eyeballs dangling from her bracelet and necklace matched her hungry stare.

  “What do you plan to do with him now?” Rancor licked her lips, and Lyre bristled. “Come work for me, and I’ll treat you well.”

  “He’s mine,” Bael snapped. “I risked a lot to steal him from Azagoth.”

  “I belong to no one.” Cipher looked each of the three fallen angels in the eye, and Lyre had to give him points for bravery. Or stupidity. Time would tell, she supposed. “I’ve given you what you want. Now give me what you promised. My freedom.”

  Bael reached for his favorite cup made from the skull of an angel. Looked like it was full of blood. “Until you’ve proven your loyalty, your freedom will be limited.”

  The anger smoldering in Cipher’s eyes sparked blue fire. His growing ire shouldn’t be sexy, but it was. It was that same intense but quiet fury that she’d found attractive in Dailon before he went vigilante on someone.

  “That wasn’t the deal, Bael.”

  “You didn’t come to us willingly,” Moloc said, sounding all reasonable and calm. “You have to earn your freedom.”

  Bael lowered the cup from his mouth and licked blood from his lips. “Worry not, worm, I’ll find a use for you. One befitting your cyberskills.”

  “Yes,” Rancor purred. “With your fallen angel powers, you could wreak havoc through the demonweb and human internet, and the viruses you could create, ones that can infect living creatures...yes, you’ll be invaluable.”

  For a moment, Lyre thought Cipher would balk, but then he shrugged. “Sounds fun.”

  Bael watched Cipher over the rim of his cup as he drank, and when he lowered the vessel from his mouth, blood dripped from his lips. “I’ll give you more freedom, only with Lyre by your side. Betray my goodwill, and I’ll eat your intestines for breakfast.” He flicked his wrist. “Begone, worm. Lyre, stay.”

  Lyre bowed her head in acknowledgement and said to Cipher under her breath, “Wait outside for me. Go. Before he changes his mind.” Bael was likely to do breakfast now if Cipher didn’t get the hell out of there.