by Karalynn Lee
The black cat sitting on the table lifted her head from grooming. “A scroll was nearly stolen from Heaven,” she said in her sand-dry voice.
Kenan’s eyes widened. “What?” The angels kept some holy texts in their realm, and it was astonishing that someone had tried to take one. “How did you hear this?” There were other shocked murmurs around the table.
The cat studied her paw, then gave it a few careful licks. “An archangel came storming down to Hellsgate to protest it. He didn’t know I was listening. He thought I was asleep—as though I could sleep through his thundering.”
“Why would he come here?” Kenan asked. “No demon could have entered Heaven.”
“He thought the scheme might have been born here, or that the would-be thief might have fled here for sanctuary. He threatened war if we didn’t turn the miscreant over.”
Those at the table shifted, suddenly on edge. Kenan felt a chill. “War between Heaven and Hell?” The first such war had preceded the creation of the mortal planes and the next, it was said, would herald its end. He couldn’t see how anything could survive if angels and demons threw their might against each other. Conquest and war, famine and death would blight the world.
“There are rumors of an angel raising havoc in Hellsgate,” the man mused. “Causing some trouble, then flying off, only to come back elsewhere.”
“That doesn’t seem like someone seeking safe harbor here,” the imp interjected.
“Perhaps it was the same archangel,” the cat said.
Kenan kept his thoughts about this rampant angel to himself. His guess was that it was someone trying to find and free Jahel. He had hoped to be done with her quickly, before any outcry was raised, but if he were honest with himself, he wanted her seduction to be a drawn out pleasure, long and lingering. She had probably been in that cage for awhile, long enough for her to be missed.
Before she’d been captured, had she fled from Heaven and a theft gone awry?
The suspicion made him uneasy. Angels weren’t supposed to lie, not according to the philosophy they lived by, but they also weren’t supposed to try and snatch holy scrolls or even be in Hellsgate. Or tempt demons.
The conversation was subdued after that, and the ale tasted bitter in his mouth. He tossed back the last of it and rose with abrupt farewells.
He stalked through the market, even the colorful sights making little impression on him. But then he caught a whiff of a familiar smell that distracted him from his gray mood. His mouth quirked as he remembered how the pies had tempted Jahel earlier, and so on a whim he bought one made with apples and brought it with him to the dressmaker’s. He rapped on the door, and it opened to reveal Jahel.
She wore a light blue that utterly suited her. The drape of the fabric eased the lines of her thin body without falling too loosely, as the robe had. She wasn’t beautiful, but he wouldn’t have turned to look at a woman who was, not while she was in front of him.
“It has buttons! And openings for my wings,” she said in delight, turning around to show him. He was disappointed not to see her bare back exposed by the robe anymore, but he smiled when she faced him again. He couldn’t do otherwise, not when she was near-glowing with simple pleasure.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “Are you ready to go, then?”
“Don’t you want to go in and thank the dressmaker?” she asked, her eyes very round.
“I already paid her,” he said evasively. The truth was that he didn’t want to deal with her flirtations.
She laughed and he realized that she was teasing him. “Are all women like that around you?” she asked.
“Not all,” he said. “But many. The blessing of being an incubus. Come on, gutter-wing.”
But she didn’t move. “Earlier, you called me your slave,” she said.
Of course she wouldn’t have forgotten. “You’re not.”
“Then what am I?”
“Hungry?” he asked, offering her the pie.
Her eyes lit up. He handed it to her, and she bit into it eagerly. The filling oozed out. She licked her fingers, and he restrained himself from offering to help, or asking for a taste from her mouth.
“This,” she said. “This is the best part about the mortal plane.”
“The food?” He laughed. He could think of other pleasures of having a physical body. “If you want more, we can pass through the market on our way.” This time she began to walk alongside him. “How long were you in that cage?”
“A couple of days,” she said after swallowing her latest bite.
He blinked. “I thought it was longer.”
“Because I looked so unkempt?” She laughed. “I didn’t like the filth, but I thought it would keep anyone from wanting to buy me. The market seemed a good public place to be, and I would be staying in one spot in case anyone came to find me. I didn’t realize that someone might come who would help me track down Lisha’s soul.” She looked up from the pie. “Did you find out where the hellhound is?”
“I was told to talk to Edom.”
“Who’s Edom?”
“He’s a demon-horse, one of the most powerful.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I thought demon-horses were used as steeds by other demons.”
“No one’s ever ridden Edom,” Kenan said, “or will, until the world’s end is nigh.”
“Oh,” she said. “One of those four. And we’re supposed to talk to him?”
“It won’t trigger Armageddon,” Kenan assured her. “I’ve dealt with him before.”
The stable was in a nearby neighborhood of Hellsgate with few humans. Demons eyed Jahel uneasily. One looked at Kenan and growled. “Are you trying to start a war?”
It would take too long to explain, so he simply said, “No,” and moved on, ignoring Jahel’s questioning look. The last thing he wanted to do was tell her about the recent angelic activity in the city. If he wanted to seduce her into giving him her soul, he had to keep her focused on her goal. He was relieved to arrive at the stable shortly afterward.
A stallion walked out to meet them, easily nineteen hands tall, his hide and mane red as blood. He whinnied a challenge at Jahel, whose wings opened as she glared back defiantly.
“Fleet Edom,” Kenan greeted him.
Edom turned to him and snorted twin tufts of smoke. “Kenan. Why bring this one here? She has the skies and no need for hooves even as swift as ours.”
“We come not for steeds.”
“It seemed too soon for you to be heading back out to the mortal realms,” the stallion said. “Then?”
“I hear there may be a hellhound here.”
Edom pawed a stone on the ground, sending up a shower of sparks. “And what business have you with such a one?”
“A soul, of course,” Kenan said.
“Hellhounds are not lightly disturbed.”
“I know.”
The stallion studied him, then moved aside. “The last stall. If you are burned to a crisp, you cannot say I did not warn you.”
Kenan went past him, but Jahel must have paused.
“Do demon-horses eat pie?” he heard her ask.
“I’ve never had any,” Edom said.
He turned around to the sight of the demon-horse lowering his muzzle to the angel’s hand and taking a slice of baked apple extracted from the pie’s filling. He was still stunned when Jahel rejoined him.
“He could smell the apples when I was about to pass him,” she said, almost defensively.
“I’m just glad he wasn’t offended,” he said. He supposed he shouldn’t expect anything typical from an angel who had come to Hellsgate. “Don’t offer any to the hellhound.”
She showed him her empty hands. “I ate the last of it.”
The stables were made of stone so that no accidental fires would be started. The demon-horses in the stalls took no notice of Kenan as he passed by, but stared balefully at Jahel.
“Perhaps I should have saved some,” she said in a dry voice.
&nb
sp; “You can’t expect demons to like your presence in their home,” he said. “What reception would I get in Heavensgate?”
She shook her head. “I can’t even imagine.”
The last stall held the hound and a small fire that burned merrily without fuel on a flat hearth-rock. The hellhound was a massive beast who would have come up to Kenan’s chest had he been standing, but he was lying on the ground, forepaws stretched out and tail trailing into the fire.
The hellhound raised his head to sniff the air. “Incubus,” he rumbled in civil enough greeting.
“Hound of Hell,” Kenan said, just as polite. He knew better than to dismiss a hellhound as a dumb beast.
“Why do you bring one of the winged ones of Heaven here? I have no interest in angels.”
“She brought me information,” Kenan said. “She told me you hold a soul.”
“So I do,” the hellhound said.
Kenan relaxed. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until then. Jahel’s story was true, then, and she wasn’t the thief.
“What does it matter to you?” the hellhound asked. “I hear your kind gathers human souls like a bitch in heat does curs.”
“I would trade for this one, so that I can then trade it to her.”
“Dealings between an angel and a demon.” He looked at them with keen red eyes, and Kenan felt as though he knew exactly what those dealings entailed. “I will not ask what you want from her, incubus.”
Kenan didn’t want Jahel to dwell upon that too long, so he said swiftly, “No, it’s for me to ask what it is you want.”
“The girl is a princess,” the hellhound said. “Her hands were soft and sweet, stroking my fur. Who can you give me who rivals that?”
“A princess?” Kenan said, startled. He could see the appeal of having royalty as a servant, but it jarred with what he’d been told. “How did she come to be cast into the woods?”
“The new queen, her stepmother, was jealous of her beauty because it eclipsed hers.”
A beautiful princess. It would be hard to match—he’d only ever managed one of those himself, and he had traded her soul away long ago. But he had a thought. “What of the queen? She must be lovely herself, to be so vain. And is a queen not superior to a princess?”
“You have the queen’s soul?”
“Not yet.” Kenan smiled. “But when I do?”
The hellhound laughed, tongue lolling. “You incubi are always so arrogant. I can see how you get along with an angel. Yes, the queen is a witch, and it would be satisfying indeed to possess her soul. Bring it to me and I will give you that of the princess.”
Kenan turned to share this triumph with Jahel, but the angel’s face was stricken.
“Is there nothing else you would take?” she asked.
The hellhound gave her a steady look. “I have no interest in angels,” he said again. “Particularly those who have failed at their guardianship.”
“We’ll return with the soul,” Kenan said before Jahel could vent any of her shocked fury, and set a hand firmly on her upper arm to guide her from the stall. She almost jerked away, then visibly recalled that he could have used the chain and grudgingly followed until they were away from the stable. Then she whirled on him.
“How could you?” she demanded.
“We had to make a trade,” he said reasonably. “Hellhounds aren’t foolish enough to give things away for naught. They’re fiendishly intelligent.” The hound had clearly recognized what his interest in her had been.
“And as evil as the rest of you! Demanding another soul, after stealing away this one’s? You can’t take another’s soul!”
“Darling,” he said, “I’m a demon. That’s what I do.”
“But this one will be taken because of me! And that’s not what angels do!”
He sighed as the agitated sweep of her wings nearly took down a passerby. “Calm down, gutter-wing. You heard the hellhound. The queen is a witch. Those who use the dark arts inevitably find their way to Hell in any case.”
“I know what she is,” she said, but there was less force in her voice.
“The angels claim their own. Let the demons do the same. This is a woman who tried to kill her own stepdaughter, the girl you were guarding. Are you truly going to protect her too?”
Her shoulders slumped. He wanted to rub them, but bided his time.
Her voice came almost too soft to hear. “I think she’s already given her soul away.”
Were mortals even attempting to hold onto them these days? “To whom?”
“There’s a glass in her chambers,” she said. “She consults it to find any maiden fairer than she, and it speaks to her.”
“A mirror-demon,” Kenan said. “How does she invoke it?”
“By rhyme.”
“Then she’s bound it to her service by sorcery,” he said in relief. “Some lesser demons get trapped so. No bargain’s been sealed.”
“So you’re free to take her soul.” Her tone was bitter.
He reached for patience. “How were you planning to take the soul from the hellhound on your own?”
She exhaled. “I don’t know what I would have tried instead—probably something absurd that would make you look at me the way you are now—but I still would have tried, and it would have been something different. I know I’m being ungrateful. I never would have offered this trade. Wouldn’t have been able to. I suppose I should be glad you’re here.”
He found that his irritation was gone. There was something compelling about her impassioned babble. “This is what happens when you accept a demon’s help,” he said. “He’ll use a demon’s methods.”
“And thank you for helping. I wouldn’t have gotten even to this point without you.” She gave him a tired smile. “I don’t know where to go next, either.”
“Mirror-demons have two sides,” he said. “One is fixed in the mortal realm. The other may be here in Hellsgate.”
“I’ve learned it’s a large city,” she said.
“It wouldn’t be anywhere but in the Hall of Mirrors.”
“But of course,” she said, as though it should have been obvious. “And I suppose you actually know where it is?”
“And I even know the man who can help us get in. It isn’t guarded, but the way is locked. There’s a locksmith who won’t have any trouble with it, though.”
“You can be useful after all.”
“I lose our way once and you doubt that I know how to get anywhere,” he said, shaking his head, and then set out.
“This walking about is very slow,” she observed, flexing her wings and glancing upward wistfully.
“There’s more to see, though.”
“How can you say that? From the skies, you can see everything spread before you, from one horizon to another.”
“Yes,” he said, “but can you make out each person in that landscape?”
She looked at those they were passing, mortal and demon alike, and her brow furrowed.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t want to in Hellsgate,” he conceded, “but do you ever walk in Heavensgate? Speak with the saints there? Marvel at the statues carved to honor the angels?”
“No,” she said. “We fly directly to Heaven. And there are no statues in Heavensgate. We would have seen them from above.”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “So you would note statues, but not the people.”
“They are saints, many of them,” she said. “Already devoted to an afterlife in Heaven. They don’t need us to guard their souls.”
“Well, walking’s worthwhile in the mortal realms.”
“Do you walk while you’re there?”
“I often ride a demon-horse,” he admitted. “But I enjoy walking in cities. That’s where you find the people.”
“That’s where you find the souls, you mean.”
He didn’t know how to explain to her how much he relished the sheer noise and color of mortals’ cities, all rich and varied. The souls were almost an excus
e. It was interacting with the people, learning their hidden desires and teasing them into the open; watching them pursue their ambitions with the passion only a finite lifetime could bring.
“Do you guard mortals only for the sake of their souls?” he asked.
“No,” she said, and then, understanding dawning, “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a thrill in watching their lives,” she said. “Seeing them caught up in so much. And sometimes there are wards I come to care for. When it’s time to take their souls, it’s bittersweet.”
“You care for this princess?” He couldn’t see her going to these lengths otherwise, whatever she said about angels’ honor.
“I felt sorry for her at first, growing up motherless. But she’s a sweet girl. I grew fond of her.”
“Do angels ever interfere with their wards’ deaths?”
She hesitated. “Sometimes. They’re not supposed to.”
“Yet you didn’t try to do so with this girl? It would have deprived the hellhound of anything to bargain with.”
She met his gaze and said, “I did. I followed the huntsman who left her there, to try to move him to pity and save the girl. It worked, but when he returned, the hellhound had come, and the man fled at the sight of it. It was out of my hands then.”
He had never thought he would approve of an angel, but this rebellious streak in her intrigued him. She had dared come to Hellsgate, after all. He said, “You’ll get that soul back yet,” and when she smiled, the wrongness of his words melted away.
Chapter Three
Tiras the locksmith already had a key ready. It had no teeth, but its surface was a series of mirrored facets that would reflect light in a precise pattern, he explained. “Don’t drop it,” he warned as he passed it over. Despite his graying hair, his hands were steady.
Kenan decided to hold on to it instead of putting it into his belt pouch full of coins. “Why do you have a key to the Hall of Mirrors?” he asked.