“We’re not going to be picky,” Tess volunteered.
“The trouble has been in locating Uzkiel. He remains well hidden, unexpectedly so.”
“Hardly surprising in a city as large and populous as this one,” Rafe said. “Especially considering our population of Others and magic users is disproportionately high.”
Rule nodded. “Noah and I, however, believe we might have thought of a way to flush him out. To make him come to us.”
Samantha looked dubious. “You really think you’re going to get a fiend you’ve been hunting for years to just knock on the door and turn himself in? That doesn’t sound like a plan; it sounds like an episode of Scooby-Doo.”
Noah shot her a sideways glance. “Well, we do have a talking dog on our team.”
The Lupine visibly bristled and Rule stepped in to distract her before she could make Abby’s brother eat his words. “Of course, we don’t expect Uzkiel to voluntarily surrender. We will set a trap and lure him into it.”
“A trap implies the use of bait,” Rafe pointed out. His voice sounded mild, but his eyes were sharp.
Rule nodded brusquely. No one was going to like this idea. Even he didn’t like it, and he and Noah were the ones who had come up with it.
“You are correct, Rafe. The trap will need to be baited. We will need to use Louamides. We will exorcise it from Abby and place it in another vessel. Then we will dangle it in front of Uzkiel and wait for the trap to spring.”
Samantha snorted. “I stand corrected. I’ve seen better plans on episodes of Scooby-Doo. We’d be better off with a bedsheet, a skateboard, and a washing machine.”
While he didn’t phrase it so bluntly, Rafe seemed to agree with the Lupine’s assessment. “The trouble with mousetraps is that often the prey steals the bait and still escapes the snare. Can we afford to take that risk?”
“We don’t have much choice.”
Abby shook her head. “Sure we do. We must. What about the coven Tess mentioned? They’re trying to track down Uzkiel. Why not wait to see what they come up with?”
Rule’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “Time is running short. The Parliament Below is losing patience. They want Uzkiel delivered so they can bring him to justice.”
“Well, they can just hold their horses. We’re doing the best we can.”
“Our best is not counted quite good enough.”
“They do have a point, though,” Noah observed. “From what Rule and De Santos tell me of them, I’ve concluded they’re a bunch of whiny little snot-nosed pencil pushers who wouldn’t know how to run a location and extraction mission if we drew them a diagram. But they’ve got a point about needing to move on this. If Tess and Rule are right about how the fiends are getting to town, it’s not a far stretch to imagine they’re doing it at Uzkiel’s suggestion. If that fiend is trying to build himself an army, we need to put a stop to it yesterday.”
“Why does that buildup make me think I’m not going to like whatever it is the two of you have dreamed up?”
Noah just grinned at his sister. “Doesn’t matter, Ab. If your boyfriend couldn’t talk me out of it, there’s no point in you even trying.”
Abby shook her head in immediate denial. “No way.”
“Sorry, Sis. You don’t get a vote.”
“There is no way,” Abby repeated, jumping out of her chair and glaring daggers at her brother. “There is no way in whatever it is you consider hell that I’m letting you take on Louamides and offer yourself up to Uzkiel on a platter. It’s not going to happen, so just get the idea out of your head right now.”
“Like I said, Abigail, you’re not going to be able to talk me out of it. And I’d like to see you stop me any other way.”
“You may be older than me, and you may be bigger than me, but I’m sneakier than you are, Noah James. And I happen to know where you sleep.”
“I can fix that soon enough. If I want to take chances, that’s my decision. It’s not just my decision; it’s my job. Or did you think I just spent my days polishing boots and posing for recruitment posters?”
“That’s a completely different thing. You’re a soldier. You’re trained to fight. I get that. But you’re not trained to fight fiends, and you’re not trained to handle being possessed by one.”
“If you can bear up under the strain, I’m pretty sure it won’t kill me.”
“No, but Mom might. Why don’t I just give her a call and tell her what you have planned?”
“Low blow, Ab.”
“Children.” Rafe rose from his seat on the sofa and stepped between the two of them. “Enough with the bickering. It is not helping matters.”
“The only thing that’s going to help matters is a swift blow to my idiot brother’s stubborn head,” Abby muttered. She turned on Rule, her eyes narrowed in anger. “And you’re going to let him do this? You were just planning to stand by while he throws himself to the wolves and give your blessing to this ludicrous plan?”
Beneath her furious bluster, Rule could see the real fear in Abby’s eyes. He had known the idea of her brother putting himself in danger would be intolerable for her and couldn’t blame her. Rule didn’t like the plan, either, but it turned out that Noah Baker was almost more stubborn than his baby sister.
“Of course not,” Rule said quietly, reaching out to grasp her arms and pull her toward him. She tried to bat his hands away, clearly not in the mood to be comforted, but he persisted. “I do not want your brother in danger any more than you do. But he is a grown man, Abby. I have no authority to gainsay him. What would you have me do?”
“Stop him.” She stamped her little foot in emphasis.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Do whatever it is you do. Work some demon magic or something. Heck, go ahead and kidnap him and lock him up in a stronghold somewhere. It seemed to work where I’m concerned.”
Rule shook his head. “Your brother is not an innocent bystander, Abby. He’s a trained soldier. If I tried to lock him in somewhere, he would try to escape. The only way for me to stop him from killing himself would be to do the job for him. I somehow doubt that is a solution of which you would approve.”
“Rule, you can’t let him do this. Please.” Her voice went from brassy to begging, and her wide, mismatched eyes pleaded with him. “You have to stop him.”
“He can’t,” Noah said.
The words came out harshly and Rule glared at him from over Abby’s head. Rule would have snapped at the other man if he hadn’t seen the haunted look in Noah’s eyes. His brusque manner clearly served to hide just how difficult this was for him.
Abby turned in Rule’s arms, aiming her miserable expression at her brother. “Why are you doing this? It’s not your fight. Why put yourself on the line?”
“Because someone has to.”
It was the same answer Rule had received when he’d asked the same question. Rule suspected that kind of commitment to duty was what had inspired Noah to join the military in the first place. He had the strength and the skills to handle this kind of situation; therefore he was honor bound to do so. To Noah, it was that simple.
To Abby, it remained a mystery.
“Someone doesn’t have to be you,” she said, and pushed herself away from Rule’s chest. He tried to pull her back, but she ducked out of reach. “I’m the reason you’re in this situation, and Lou is already perfectly at home inside of me. There’s no reason to drag someone else into this mess. If anyone is going to act as bait, it should be me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Absolutely not.”
Rule’s veto came immediately and unequivocally. Abby had expected that, but she didn’t react. She just took a deep breath and went on with her alternate plan.
“Not only is Lou already inside me, solus spell and all, but that other fiend—Seth, Uzkiel’s minion—knows where Lou is hiding. That’s why Seth came after me in the first place. Why try to reinvent the wheel? The fiends know about me and they know I’m being prote
cted by the Silverback Clan, so they must have some idea where I’m hiding. It’s ridiculous to move Lou to Noah and then have to let the fiends find out about it before they can even come looking for him. I’m already set up and ready to go. We should move now. The sooner the better.”
Tess pursed her lips. “Anyone else having déjà vu?”
Abby ignored that. She couldn’t say her eagerness was all about the desire to see justice done. A lot of it had to do with the school of thought that decreed it was better to rip a bandage off quickly, so that the pain would be over with in the shortest amount of time possible.
“It’s out of the question.” Rule’s features had settled into those harsh, granite lines again, the ones that said he was the demon and he made the rules. She realized he hadn’t used that mask with her since before they’d made love, and she didn’t like seeing it return, even if she understood the reasons.
“It’s no more out of the question for me to be the bait than it was for my brother to be the bait. We’re both human. We’re both equally unequipped to do battle with an archfiend.”
Rule glared at her. “Your brother happens to be equipped with an AK-47 and a kilogram of plastic explosive.”
Okay, Rule had a point there. But still . . .
“Do you really think that when we take Uzkiel down, it’s going to be with bombs or bullets?”
“When I take Uzkiel down, you are going to be nowhere in the vicinity.”
She returned his glare with interest. “I already escaped one, Mr. Dictator. Want to see how fast I can repeat that if you try and wrap me in cotton balls and put me on a shelf until this is over?”
Rafe muttered under his breath and stepped forward again. “I swear I should be getting combat pay.” He put a hand on Rule’s shoulder to draw his attention. “If Noah were to act as bait, what would the rest of the plain entail?”
Abby opened her mouth to say the rest of the plan didn’t matter, since her brother wasn’t going to be involved in it, but Rafe sent her a look clearly designed to shut her up. What ended up being even more effective was the elbow Tess hurried over to plant in Abby’s side. That knocked enough of the breath out of her that she actually couldn’t protest for a few minutes.
“Since Noah is a well-trained and experienced soldier,” Rule said, shooting Abby a pointed glare, “I have every confidence that he could hold his own in an emergency situation. We would spread the word that Lou had moved into a new human host, and then have him attract the fiend’s attention with something suitably Lou-like. A fracas at a strip club would do nicely.”
Mmm, just so long as I got to look for a while before the fracas.
“Shut up, Lou,” Abby muttered under her breath.
You’re such a fun-Nazi.
“It would not take long for Uzkiel to put those pieces together and send his minions after Noah. We would allow Noah to lead them to a secured area, and once there, we would perform a binding spell and bring the fiend’s imprisoned spirit back to the Below for the Parliament to deal with.”
“And I’m sure it would all work out just that tidily.” Abby crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Rule.
“That’s why Rule pointed out he knows I can deal with emergency situations,” Noah defended. “It wouldn’t be the first mission I’ve been on that went straight into FUBAR, and I can sure as hell predict it won’t be the last.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Abby said, “because you won’t be on this mission. Like I said, if anyone here is going to put themselves in a situation like this, it’s going to be me.”
“Over my dead body,” Rule snapped.
“Don’t tempt me,” Abby hissed.
“I am not certain anyone will be performing this mission,” Rafe said. He was frowning, only this time Abby didn’t think it was just because the bickering had resumed. He looked about as convinced of the feasibility of this grand plan as she felt. “It sounds like a very large risk with a very small chance of success. Do we even know if we have the capability to perform such a binding spell?” He glanced at his wife and arched an eyebrow.
“Maybe,” she said, pursing her lips. “It wouldn’t be easy. It would certainly be beyond my fiendish powers, but Rule is a demon. He’s from the same plane as Uzkiel. That could give him an advantage. Plus, he told me he’s got some kind of special gris-gris or something that’s been designed to hold arch-fiends like this one.”
“It’s a silver mirror,” Rule informed them grudgingly. “Not a modern mirror, but a highly polished piece of silver with an accurately reflective surface.”
“And that does what?” Samantha asked.
“Another piece of folklore attributed to the wrong place. Vampires have no fear of mirrors because they cast no reflections. One seldom fears an absence of something. But archfiends fear their own reflections. It is a reminder of how far they have strayed from what they once were. At one time, they were demons not so different from me. When they see proof of how evil has changed them, they can become bound to the reflective surface and trapped there.”
Tess looked intrigued. “Really? I’ll have to remember that little trick. I always carry a compact in my purse with me.”
“I wouldn’t advise using it,” Rule cautioned. “The mirror I brought with me is silver and not glass for a reason. A mirror can bind an archfiend and even hold one temporarily, but mirrors are fragile. It doesn’t take much force for the fiend to break free of one. They can also break accidentally, and when the mirror breaks, it releases the spirit of the fiend back out into the world. Usually, a much crankier fiend than the one you had originally captured.”
“But the fiend will be unable to break free of the silver mirror?” Rafe asked.
“At least for long enough for me to return it Below.”
“Right. That’s a great plan,” Samantha observed, her tone dripping sarcasm. “Totally foolproof. Except for the parts where you find the fiend that’s currently hiding from you, let it track you to a secure location you haven’t managed to locate, and do a spell even the witch isn’t certain you can cast. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Anything could go wrong. Which is why it’s going to be me acting as bait and not my defenseless baby sister.” Noah smiled, an expression with a lot of teeth but no discernible humor.
“I agree. This is too dangerous to involve Abby in. Noah and I will handle it and return here when we’ve finished.”
Abby turned on Rule, flashing a considerable number of her own teeth. So this was what the phase “her blood boiled” was referring to. “News flash, you arrogant putz, this is not 1942, I’m not the little woman, and I’m not going to stand on the dock and wave my handkerchief at you while you sail off to war. I’m part of this mess, and I’m going to see it finished.”
Tess tilted her head to the side and looked Abby over from head to toe. “She looks pretty serious to me, guys.”
“We outnumber her,” Noah said. “The vote is two to one. Abby loses.”
“Then Abby is going to cheat,” she bit out. They had her talking about herself in the third person. It was another mark to add to their growing tally of sins. “You can plan whatever you want, and you can try to leave me behind, but the minute your backs are turned, I will start dogging your heels like the specter of a gruesome death.”
The three of them faced one another in the center of the room, faces set, expressions grim, body language screaming with tension, anger, and determination.
The room fell eerily silent.
“I believe we have ourselves a stalemate.” Rafe sighed the observation. “In situations like these, I have found the only workable solution tends to be something called a compromise. Have any of you heard the term?”
Abby supposed she should be glad at least someone could see the humor in the situation. “I have, but since it’s got more than one syllable, I’d be surprised if the Neanderthal brothers over here had.”
Rafe shot her a quelling glance. “I’ve had enough of the fighting
, Miss Baker. It’s time to move past our emotions and reason to a logical solution to our problem.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. It’s not logical to exorcise me, move Louamides into my brother, and then try to re-create a wheel that already exists. Lou is already inside me, and Uzkiel already knows he is. If we just use me as bait, we can skip all the preliminaries and go right to the trap. Noah and Rule are the ones who keep pointing out that we need to hurry. If we need to hurry, then we shouldn’t be wasting time building a bunch of extra steps into the process.”
Rafe looked at Rule. “She has a point.”
Abby could see the muscle in the side of the demon’s jaw pulsing and knew it took a considerable amount of self-control for him not to just roar out a denial, beat on his chest, and drag her out of the room by her hair. When it came right down to it, men were still ruled by primitive instincts.
“I will not deny there is a certain . . . efficiency to her proposal,” Rule finally conceded. His reluctance came through loud and clear, considering he had to bite off every word through tightly clenched teeth. “But I have to balance efficiency with the possibility of something going wrong. If it does, I will not be able to protect her. Noah can protect himself. That gives him a distinct advantage in the event of a problem.”
You might want to remind him that while you happen to be a girl—with terrific tits, I might add, even if you won’t let me see ’em—I most definitely am not.
Hearing Lou’s voice just then startled Abby out of her haze of anger. She had almost forgotten that it had been listening to the entire debate.
I mean, I can’t say I’m thrilled with any plan that puts me in clawing distance of the big guy, but it looks like those two aren’t gonna give me much choice. And even if I’m not up to taking him on, I at least make up for the differences between you and your brother. So I vote I stay put.
The Demon You Know Page 20