by Debra Dunbar
My voice dropped several octaves. “Dar, if you lay one furry paw on him, if you even speak to him, I’ll rip you to shreds. Understood?”
Dar grinned. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your tail in a knot. He’s your toy. I’ll respect your ownership. Besides, I’ll have my hands full with my own activities. I’m not about to waste my time at some stupid security conference.”
Fair enough. I slugged him in the shoulder, just to emphasize my point. He slugged me back then picked up the television remote to surf the channels. Looking down at the slip of paper in my hand, I chuckled, thinking of Garbiel’s face if this whole wild tale was true. Either way, Dregvant wasn’t going to be the only demon at this meeting.
I walked Dar out to his rental car and watched him head down the road. By the time I’d made it back inside, Nyalla and Harper were already downstairs, pawing through the goodies on the table like it was Christmas morning and Santa had filled their stockings with candy.
“What does this one do?”
They were practically dancing with excitement over the magical toys. I held my breath as Nyalla snatched up the wand and waved it around like she was Harry Potter.
“No, don’t!” I grabbed it and put it reverently back on the table. “For fuck sake, you could have frozen me in this form. That wand doesn’t require an incantation, only blood.”
“Blood?” She squealed, her eyes wide. “So I slice up my thumb and freeze people in a block of ice?”
“No.” I moved the bag of black marbles further from Harper, trying to encourage her to play with one of the nets instead. They were safer. “Slice up your thumb, or bite a hang–nail, and I’ll be stuck in this form without access to my demon powers for a week. It only works on demons, although I’m hoping it may work on angels too.”
“And those?” Harper reached for the marbles, and I again moved them out of her reach.
“Throw them and they explode on impact.”
The woman’s eyes grew large. I got the feeling she’d found something she might like better than the kitchen knives stashed in her belt.
“It’s not really the explosion that damages us, although that hurts like fuck. The marbles release a spell that acts as a hallucinogenic. It’s disorienting, distracting, but, other than that, the results are unpredictable. I might see maggots crawling all over my body, or feel like I’ve been weighted down and can’t move.”
Nyalla pursed her lips, touching one of the marbles with a gentle finger. “Illusion?”
“Yeah, but it’s not strictly visual. We feel it, smell it — it affects all of our senses, even our perception of energy. Again, I’m not sure it will have the same effect, or even work, on angels.”
“Worth a shot.” Harper put her hands on her hips and eyed the items with satisfaction. “The net worked. From what I saw of you dragging that Hunter angel into the cellar, the collar–thingie works.”
“I hope so.” I put a hand on Nyalla’s shoulder and smiled down at her. “There will be times when I won’t be around, and I want you all to feel free to use these on any angels that show up at the house. Except my angel.”
I knew it was a bit of a sweeping statement to lump every visiting angel into the ‘threat’ category, but I’d rather these girls be safe than dead. The dude in the basement swore he wasn’t going to hurt Harper, but who’s to say another angel might not feel differently. For a second, I imagined Nyalla using the wand on Rafael while Harper stabbed him full of holes. Yeah, that would be a tough one to explain. It would suck if I ever had to fill out one of those reports.
–12–
Dregvant was easy to spot. Of all the men in the place, he was the only one wearing mismatched, garishly colored Ed Hardy shirt, pants, and jacket. Every inch of tanned flesh was covered with more bling than a trophy wife. It hurt my eyes to look at him. And if that didn’t clue me in that he was a demon, the fact that he was snorting a line of coke in the middle of a Chuck E Cheese did.
I made my way through the crowds of sugar and adrenaline–fueled children to the table where he sat, just a few chairs down from little Dallas, who was celebrating his fifth birthday.
“Go away, kid,” he muttered, not even looking up to see that the human appearance I wore was considerably older than the children squealing three feet away.
I waved a hand, more for drama than any need for magical gesture, and the cocaine vanished. That got his attention. The demon snarled, but his glare changed into shock when he met my eyes and realized who I was. Then he tried to bolt, knocking his chair backwards as he rose.
“Whoa there, buddy.” I clamped a hand on his shoulder, and he dropped to the floor on his ass. One of the benefits of my new mutated–demon state was that I had the nifty ability to restrict a demon’s energy usage as long as I was touching him. That silicon–like shit had always been Gregory’s way to subdue me, and I was happy to have this as a new skill, even if it only worked on demons.
“Freak.” He snarled.
I was a freak. The only Angel of Chaos in over two–million years. And my wings were threatening to erupt into their fifty–foot feathered glory any second. I struggled to keep control, not wanting to tip off the other being I planned to accost this afternoon.
“You’re in trouble.” I tried to interject a conspiratorial note into my voice. “Eirnilius was discovered, and he sold you out for a reduced sentence. The enforcers will be here any second.”
“Fuck!” Now he really was panicking, squirming on the floor as he searched for the nearest exits.
“They’ve surrounded the building,” I whispered. “I can gate you out of here to safety, but it will cost you.”
“How much? How much?”
I hid a smile at his squeaky tone. “A favor. Oh, and give me the breeding contract. If you get caught with that on you, you’re worse than dead. They’ll haul you up to Aaru and stick you in some prison to torture you with paperwork — two–hundred–page four–nine–five reports with impact analysis and everything. It goes on and on. The paperwork is never complete, or never done to their satisfaction. You’ll be there for all eternity filling it out and re–doing it endlessly.”
I shuddered for effect, and his eyes widened.
“Aaru? And … paperwork? Oh fuck, not that! You’ve got a deal.” Dregvant frantically dug the folded parchment from his waistband and thrust it at me.
I quickly checked its legitimacy, keeping one hand firmly on the demon. In a flash, we were gone, and just as quickly I’d returned — thankfully managing to reappear in the same spot and not suspended from the ceiling or sprawled across the salad bar. Just in time, too — Eirnilius was as easy to spot as Dregvant had been, although for different reasons.
Angels never really blended in well with the humans. Eirnilius looked like a living statue with poorly fitting clothing and shoulder–length blond curls. He smiled kindly at the children that knocked into him in their haste to redeem their game tickets. I felt a moment of guilt for what I was about to do. I wanted this sort of contact to occur between angels and demons. I was working with Rafi to try and bring about this change. But Dregvant was an absolute ass. If there were demons that should be fucking angels, he wouldn’t be anywhere near the top of my list. I was doing this Eirnilius guy a favor. Really.
And hey, he was an angel breaking the rules. No matter what punishment he got, it would be far more lenient than the death penalty dealt to us demons when we were caught. Yeah. That made me feel so much better about busting him. Almost made me feel better.
I shook my head to clear away the guilty thoughts. Now came the tricky part. Approaching the angel would be easy — I was pretty stealthy in my human form. It was apprehending him that would be touch and go. Angels were a slippery bunch.
“Ernie, fancy meeting you here.”
Taking advantage of his confusion, I grabbed him and gated to the one place I always managed to appear, sometimes even when I didn’t want to — Aaru.
You’d think the angels would be used to my po
pping into their homeland uninvited and unannounced, since I seemed to do it pretty regularly. Nope. A flurry of noise and activity ensued, no doubt amplified by the fact that I had an angel in my arms, and a sword against his chest.
“Cockroach? What are you doing with that angel?”
I couldn’t help a shiver of delight at Gregory’s amused tone, although he probably would have been less entertained if he’d known I had an angel duct taped in my basement, too. Still, his presence, his interest, sent all kinds of naughty visions through my mind. But angel fucking would have to wait. I had a more pressing matter on my hands — or in my arms.
“As the Iblis, I am requesting an emergency Ruling Council meeting to discuss a violation of our contract on the part of Ernie here.”
Gregory raised his eyebrows. “Right now?”
“No, I was really hoping to stand here holding this guy for the next few decades. Yes, of course right now.” I shook my head. “Idiot,” I added, under my breath.
The steely look in Gregory’s eyes took my breath away. I’d pay for that little remark later, and oh how I’d enjoy it.
“Can you gate there, or do you need my assistance in transporting yourself and your new appendage?”
I hesitated. Normally I’d make them all wait while I spent half the day unintentionally gating to every place on the planet except the Marriott conference room where the angels held these meetings, but I worried that the extra time would give my captive plenty of opportunity to make an escape. There were enough rogue angels running around the planet without adding this guy into the equation.
“I’d appreciate a lift.”
I felt rather than heard the snickering from the other, non–corporeal angels that surrounded us. Not that it mattered. They’d considered me a fool from the first day I’d appeared here — a dangerous, rather frightening fool.
Normally Gregory wrapped his arms tightly around me for transport, but this time we just appeared in the conference room. I eyed him suspiciously, realizing that all those previous times, he’d used gating me somewhere as an excuse for physical contact. Before I could call him out about his un–angelic cuddling tendencies, the other members of the council arrived.
The identical look on their faces was worth a thousand words. Gabriel sputtered, pointing a finger at me. Or possibly at Eirnilius.
“So, Dopey, I hear this piece of shit belongs to your household?” I shoved the angel forward out of my arms, careful not to nick him with my sword.
“How dare you… .”
“Did he have your permission to be out of Aaru among the humans?”
Gabriel hesitated. Interesting. The stick–up–the–ass angel I’d grown to know and hate would never have considered lying, but that’s clearly what he was thinking of doing.
“No,” he grudgingly admitted.
“Then I’m assuming he also didn’t have your permission to be negotiating with a demon for the purposes of procreation. No?”
“No.” Gabriel’s tone was glacial, and I shivered with an involuntary spike of fear. I’d seen him angry before, but never like this. “You better have proof of this, demon. I’ll have your hide for this if you’re lying.”
The atmosphere shifted, heat warring against ice. I felt like the floor was tilting with the surge of power.
Mind your speech, brother.
Gregory’s communication was private, between him and Gabriel. Somehow I picked it up, and I wasn’t sure if that was intentional on Gregory’s part or not. The heat increased, and I felt Gabriel back down, shifting slightly in his seat.
“I apologize if in my shock of the situation I spoke out of turn. I meant no disrespect, Iblis.”
He did mean disrespect, and that had to have been the most grudging apology ever. I understood his embarrassment though. He was the master of control and one of his angels had fucked up. I’m sure he was wondering how many others were doing the same. Now the odd guilt I felt over what I was doing to this angel was combined with an equally odd sympathy for Gabriel.
“She’s lying,” Eirnilius snarled. “She threatened me with her sword, held me against my will and transported me without my consent, violating article twenty–nine, section four.” My guilt and sympathy vanished.
“Nope. He’s trying to get his groove on with a demon. They had their clandestine meetings at a Chuck E Cheese, too. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. Think of the children!”
“I did not consort with demons!” Eirnilius’ eyes flashed with indignation. “I was out of Aaru without permission — that I readily admit and I will accept my punishment, but I was not negotiating a breeding incidence with a demon. I was merely at the Chuck E Cheese to bless the human young.”
“My ass. He was meeting the demon there. Liar.”
Gabriel’s eyes flashed. “You may be the Iblis. You may have wings, but demons lie. Why should we take your word over that of an angel with an unblemished record? What proof do you have to substantiate your claims?”
“This.” I pulled the parchment from under my shirt and handed it to Gregory. The silence in the room was broken only by the sound of my angel unfolding and reading the contract.
“In exchange for one breeding occurrence, the demon known as Dregvant Era will receive a domicile of his choosing in southern France, furnished as he specifies, as well as the services of a magic–user to cloak said domicile against detection by angels and to protect it from theft… .”
Damn. I thought of Harper, bred without her consent and with no promise of a cozy house along the Mediterranean. This guy had broken the treaty, but aside from wanting to put Gabriel’s nose out of joint, I had no beef with him. Shit, not like I wasn’t doing almost the same thing, angel fucking with Gregory. That surge of guilt returned and dove through me. Would this guy face death over this? I’d thought they would just stuff him in jail, but now I wondered. I was beginning to regret my hasty actions. That asshole who’d done Harper wrong would suffer only the loss of his child and ‘rehabilitation’. Angel justice was very lopsided, but that wasn’t any of my concern. I wasn’t the one who made the rules.
Gregory continued reading the contract. The angels sat in stunned silence, glancing back and forth between the accused and the parchment in Gregory’s hands. My head whirled with the details of the transaction. Fuck, this was better than any breeding proposal I’d ever received, even Ahriman’s. No wonder Dregvant had put his life on the line for this. I would have too.
Finished, Gregory handed the contract to Gabriel. “He is in your choir.”
“This is your sigil, Eirnilius,” Gabriel said. “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”
The angel shook his head angrily, blond curls bouncing. “Don’t think I’m the only one. Do you know how many angels are walking outside of Aaru, associating with demons? You can’t stop us, especially when one of your own is setting such a great example. Are joinings and the possibility of offspring to be only the privilege of the Ruling Council? If so, you won’t be in those seats for long.”
I’d underestimated Ernie. That was a gutsy, although rather suicidal speech.
“You are violating the terms of our separation treaty!” Gabriel snarled.
“At least I’m not sinning with humans. How many angels over the last ten–thousand years have? Even after the fall of the tenth choir, angels are still at it. Nephilim walk the earth right under your noses, hidden and protected by a group of angels so desperate that they’ll risk their vibration levels to sin with humans. At least I’m keeping it within my own species.”
Gabriel’s face turned an alarming shade of red. “Your vibration levels still suffer in joining with demons. Where is your willpower? Your sense of centered rightness?”
Ernie snorted. “Who’s to say your idea of center is correct? A bunch of snobby hypocrites, all of you.”
I cast a quick glance at the other angels, silent as they watched the interchange. None of them seemed particularly outraged. I’d hoped to cause more of a ruckus than this
. Yeah, I’d put Gabriel’s nose out of joint, but no one else seemed bothered. Now shame joined the guilt. An angel might die just because I didn’t like one of Gregory’s brothers — an angel that seemed like a rather cool guy. And it would be my fault.
“Maybe I was mistaken.”
Gregory turned a stern gaze toward me. “But you have the breeding contract with Eirnilius’ sigil on it. There is no mistake.”
“Umm, identity theft? It happens all the time with humans. Some angel assumed his name and copied his sigil?”
From the awkward silence greeting my suggestion, I knew they all thought me an idiot. I was an idiot for even suggesting such a thing. Sigil’s carried energy — they could be copied by magic users for spell and binding purposes, and each one clearly carried the mark of their maker. A forgery would be easily detected. My mind whirled, trying to figure some way out of this mess I’d created.
“I did it.” Eirnilius stood straight, his chin at a defiant, upward angle. “I negotiated with a demon for purposes of breeding. I assisted his travel through the gates, and I bribed him to form an offspring to my specifications.”
We all turned to face the angel. I held my breath. If he died for this, it would be on my head. I wondered if I could jump in and gate him away before the execution, if Gregory would help me save him somehow. Probably not.
“Eirnilius, you will suffer the consequences for your violation of the treaty.” Gabriel’s voice was sober as he looked at the angel. Then he stood and met the accused’s eyes. “Eirnilius, you are stripped of your halo and condemned to never enter Aaru again. You are Fallen and now subject to the leader of Hel. Your existence is at her whim.”
There was a flash, and Eirnilius dropped to the floor in a fetal position. I was more surprised by Gabriel’s pronouncement than its effect on the other angel. What the fuck had he meant? Leader of Hel? Wasn’t that me? I remembered something about being in charge of those with low FICO scores and the fallen, but I’d assumed that only meant humans. Fallen angels too?