by Debra Dunbar
His expression turned carefully blank. “You don’t even sound like a demon anymore. You sure as fuck don’t sound like an Iblis should. Since when is there this ‘us’ shit? Since when do we do what the angels want?”
“Since both sides decided compromise was preferable to death.” I took a few more steps and came to a stop roughly six feet from him, my hands still in my pockets. It was close enough to show I was confident in my ability to take him with lightning speed if I had to, but far enough that I had a few seconds to get my hands out of my pockets and get my sword.
I hoped.
“I’m working toward a situation where we get to come and go from Hel as we please and enjoy what this world has to offer, but if we want that, we need to play nice with the angels. That means no bounties on their wings. No joining up with Ancients who have a kill-everything-and-salt-the-earth philosophy.”
He sneered. “How about instead we just kill all the angels and do whatever the fuck we want? There’s more of us. We can take ’em. We don’t need to play nice. They hate us. We hate them. Let’s just settle this once and for all.”
“Oh, and that worked out so well for us two-and-a-half-million years ago?” I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t wait for his response. “We’ve got the numbers, but in general they’re more powerful. Plus, once we start a war with them, any compromise negotiations will be knocked right off the table. We lose and half of us are dead with the surviving half locked in Hel even tighter than before. They could take down the gates, and we’d never get out.”
“We won’t lose.”
I pulled a hand from my pocket and motioned for him to go on. “You sound pretty confident about this considering you’re a mid-level demon with an army of fifty.”
“It’s not just my household. There’s more. We’ve got a powerful Ancient supporting us, the real Iblis, not some peacemaking, angel-fucking imp with a sword. We’re going to wipe the angels off the face of the planet. He says last time the fight was in Aaru where evidently they all fought without bodies or something. This time the fight will be here and we have the advantage because we’re used to being in physical form and they’re not.”
“What about the humans? You think they’re just going to sit on the sidelines, eat popcorn, and watch while angels and demons destroy their cities? While they become side casualties of a war that isn’t theirs?” I shoved my hand back in my pocket and tried to look like I was planning on nothing more than a conversation with Caramort. I was hoping he’d come to agree with my reasoning, but the reality was that we were gonna end up fighting. But I needed information before I most likely ended up killing this guy. But I hoped could convince him to switch sides. I needed more demons on my side. I needed all of Hel behind me, and if I had to do it one demon at a time, I would.
Caramort looked confused at my question. “What about the humans? They’ll either support us, or not. And if not, then they better stay out of the way. The angels love them so much, maybe we’ll use them as bait in a trap. It’s not like they’re a threat or anything. They’re just humans.”
Moron. “If you haven’t noticed, they’ve got some impressive weaponry right now, and we’re not indestructible. Plus, they’re all over this world like fucking ants. Talk about a numbers game. There might be more demons than angels, but humans outnumber us like a hundred thousand to one.”
He scowled again. “I don’t fucking care. Samael says to do it, and I do it. He’s our leader, and once we kill off all the angels, this world is ours. Humans that aren’t dead can be our toys, our slaves. That’s the future, not some fucked-up place where demons have to follow the rules and hope some angel doesn’t kill us in a back alley and claim self-defense.”
Clearly there was no winning this dickhead over to my side, so I might as well get what information I could from him and either kill him or…
Or what? I remembered the freaky naked-and-restrained cell up in Aaru for rehabilitating wayward angels and got an idea.
“Where is Samael? What exactly does he have planned, and where the fuck is this army he supposedly has?”
He eyed the hands in my pockets, his posture tensing. “I don’t know any of that shit. I’m just supposed to stay here in Oregon with my household and hold my position until he tells me otherwise.”
“How many others are doing the same, and where are they?”
He shrugged, still watching my hands. “Probably five or ten thousand. I don’t know. We didn’t come through all at the same time, and he’s got us in different spots, awaiting his command.”
Five or ten thousand? That was it? I frowned, realizing that if there had been a mass exodus of demons from Hel, word of it would have been everywhere. Beyond that, I would have felt it. Again, that connectedness sensation lit up every bit of my spirit-being, faint but there, assuring me that the majority of demons were still safely in Hel. Five or ten thousand? No other Ancients enlisted to support his cause? And I still had the sword? If this was Samael, and I still had some doubts, he wasn’t anywhere near the archangel he’d once been, no matter what Caramort said.
“You’re convinced this is the Samael of legend, not just some Ancient who’s gone off the deep end and thinks he’s the former Iblis?” I asked, because I was still undecided.
“I’m positive. He’s powerful. He’s charismatic. He’s got a plan that will put us on top, where we belong, and the angels in their graves. No one doubts him.”
No one but me, it seemed.
“You really believe he’s the Iblis? I know I’m not exactly respected in Hel, but you guys are really going to believe any asshole who stands up in a crowd and claims to be Samael?”
“It’s him, I tell you. He’s powerful—far more powerful than any Ancient I’ve ever met.”
“And you’ve met a lot of Ancients?” I rolled my eyes.
“He’s got an army.” Caramort looked at my hands again. “And he’s got the sword, or you would have been swinging it around in my face right now. You’re not the Iblis. You’re not even an imp with a sword. You’re a nobody with wings.”
He launched a blast of energy at me. I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t, and in the fraction of a second I had before he fried me to an uncomfortable crisp, I acted instinctually to save my sorry ass—I summoned my sword. With my hands still in my pockets because I had no time to pull them out.
I’m sure it looked like the world’s biggest metal, pointy-tipped dick ripped through the crotch of my pants, glowing and humming like some fucking light saber as it sucked in his blast. The thing had saved me, but I quickly realized it was difficult to launch an attack with a sword that was sticking out of the front of my pants.
The good thing was that Caramort seemed just as unsettled about fighting a sword-dick as I did wielding one. I lunged forward, using the blade to tear upward through my waistband, then I did a lovely hopping maneuver to shake my legs free of the fallen, ripped pants. The demon sent another halfhearted energy blast my way, which I blocked before jamming the sword through his midsection, driving him backward to pin him to the wall.
Don’t fucking kill him, I instructed the sword. The weapon had a nasty habit of taking that decision into its own hands—or blade. Sometimes the blow just bruised my opponent, sometimes it acted like a normal human sword, sometimes it went full-throttle and transmuted a demon into a pile of sand. Not that I’d be overly sad if the sword took the latter action and killed Caramort, but I’d been trying to get it to obey me and not make those decisions on its own.
Surprisingly the sword listened. Caramort could have easily jerked free of a regular blade, and continued the attack while recreating his damaged flesh, but the sword was clearly doing something interesting because he froze as if I had him by the balls and stared at me in fear.
“Guess Samael doesn’t have the sword after all,” I reached forward and flicked his nose. “Now what kind of Iblis can’t call back his own sword from a lousy imp, huh? What kind of mighty, powerful Ancient pulls together an
army made up of only five or ten thousand demons without including any of his old, powerful, buddies, and leaves an imp in possession of the one weapon that can cut through a choir of angels like they were tissue paper? Maybe someone who isn’t really Samael after all?”
“It’s him. I swear it’s him. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He’s Samael, I swear on all the souls I Own, it’s him.” He took a ragged breath. “I don’t know why he doesn’t have the sword, but the small army is to do some preliminary stuff. Once we kill off a few key angels and are in position, he’ll pull together his Ancient allies and empty Hel for the bigger battle.”
Prelimary stuff, like kill off thousands of angels and seven Grigori, or something else?
“Specifics,” I told Caramort. “I need specifics. What’s he doing exactly? What are his plans?”
“I don’t know,” he lied. “I’m just a flunky up here to keep watch on this section and kill any angels I see.”
“Really.” I leaned in. “That’s too bad.”
He swallowed hard. “Are you going to kill me?”
I looked down at the sword. “Maybe I’ll devour you instead. I haven’t done that in a while.”
Now he looked absolutely terrified. “Use the sword. Please use the sword. Don’t devour me, please. I’ll tell you anything. Samael, the Iblis… I mean the Ancient calling himself the Iblis is going to seize part of the human world in the next few weeks. I don’t know which part. He wanted to take out as many of the angelic host as possible without anyone realizing they were being murdered. We were supposed to make it look like accidents. Thin the herd. And for every set of wings we brought in, we got a bounty.”
I stroked his cheek, sending my spirit-self in to probe Caramort’s.
“No! Don’t! The…the next step was to hit the Grigori and take out their strongest enforcers. He said his brother would respond by bringing the rest of the enforcers to the gates. That way they’re all in one place and he can kill them.”
I frowned. “How can he do that? Not many demons are strong enough to kill an enforcer, and he’s the only Ancient. He can’t be seven places at once. He’d need…” Fuck. He’d pull the Ancients to his side and have them cross at the different gates in unison, wiping out both the enforcers and gate guardians there. And then the army would arrive.
“When? When is he doing this?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is when that happens, he’ll give the word and we’re supposed to seize control of the human area he designates. We’re supposed to kill a lot of people and make a big deal about it. It’s a trap to lure the remaining angels in. Then the real fight begins.”
The real fight without most of the powerful Grigori, and with the gateways wide open and unattended, and the human world in a panic. But there was one thing Caramort hadn’t brought up.
“And the archangels?” I reached out to grip his spirit-self, tugging on it slightly. “I’m sure this Samael has something special in mind for them.”
Caramort squeezed his eyes shut. “He was hoping to grab you and use you as bait to draw Michael and the others in. If not, then he’ll face them on the battlefield.”
Well, that wasn’t a very imaginative plan. This bait and ambush and trap stuff seemed to be the only tools in Samael’s box. Another reason I didn’t think this Ancient really was the former Iblis. I could see Samael as sneaky and clever, not a boring old one-trick pony sort of guy.
Although this was a good plan. A solid plan. A plan that someone who had skills and experience in battle would put together. I kept envisioning Samael as imp-like in my head, probably because of what Gregory had told me, but maybe he was nothing like me. Maybe he was more like his eldest brother than I’d imagined.
“You know I can’t exactly let you go.” I backed off from Caramort’s spirit-self and eyed him. He’d given me a lot of information, and I got the impression he wasn’t quite as committed to Samael’s cause as I’d originally thought. I didn’t want to kill a potential ally, but I couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t sneak right back to Samael once my sword wasn’t jabbed through his guts.
He nodded. “Don’t devour me. Please don’t. Just kill me outright.”
I pulled the sword from his midsection and watched as he slumped to his knees. “Swear allegiance to me. Vow that you and your household will obey and support me in all things, as the Iblis and leader of Hel. Do this and I will let you live.”
Caramort stared up at me in surprise, then took a ragged breath.
“I swear.” He clutched himself and struggled to recreate the damaged flesh, making me eye my sword with respect. “I vow on all the souls I Own that I and my household will serve, obey, and support you as the Iblis.”
I whistled and watched Caramort bleed until Dar and Leethu arrived.
“I’m afraid you guys are going to need to do beer and hot wings without me,” I told them. “I need to transport Caramort here to Hel where he is going to spend some quality time in Ahriman’s—I mean my—dungeon, contemplating how he plans to be a loyal servant to the Iblis for the rest of his life.
The demon blinked at me in surprise. “But I vowed. I swore…”
“You did, and I am going to let you live.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet. “And once this is all done, and I’m fully convinced of your sincerity, you’ll have your freedom. Until then, enjoy some damp, cold solitude.”
With a quick grin at Leethu and Dar, I transported Caramort to my house in Patchine. And then I left him in my dungeon, dizzy and puking from the experience.
I plopped down next to Gregory on the sofa and put my head against his arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Doriel got a message from her household in Hel about something urgent. She was unable to go out with Nyalla and her friends, so Lux and I returned early.” He glanced up the stairs. “He’s asleep now. It concerns me how much sleep he seems to need. Angels shouldn’t require that much slumber. Angels shouldn’t require slumber at all.”
“He wasn’t created in Aaru,” I reminded the archangel. “Lux has had a corporeal form from the moment he was formed. It means he’s going to be more sensitive to physical needs. Eating. Sleeping. Breathing.” And physical desire, although there was no need to get into that right now.
“I confess I have succumbed to the urge to go upstairs and check on him multiple times.”
“Yeah. Asta said the same thing about Karrae. She thought something was wrong with her because the little angel slept so much. Seems to be a normal thing.” I wasn’t going to confess to doing the same, not so much because I found Lux’s sleeping abnormal, but because the kid had a habit of killing off his physical form and I feared I’d find him smothered in his blankets or choking on a toy. Idiot.
“I guess so. It’s difficult for me to accept. None of us ever had cause to assume a corporeal form until we were thousands of years old at the youngest. He’s an Angel of Order, yet I see his sleep patterns, his need for liquid, his enjoyment of human food, and I worry…”
“You worry he’s more like a demon,” I finished. “We are the way we are not just because of inbreeding Angels of Chaos, but because we’ve always needed to be in a physical form. This has never been the case with an Angel of Order before. We’re both going to have to be open minded about how Lux is going to turn out. There’s a good chance he might not be like other Angels of Order.”
Gregory nodded. “Do you think he’ll be able to enter Aaru? I’ve often wondered if the banishment would not apply to new angels.”
“I’ve thought the same.” Although that would need to be when he was older and stronger, and better able to hold his own against the Ancients that now held Aaru—like his sire Remiel.
The archangel put his arm around me and pulled me close. “We missed you today. Lux is looking forward to our moon excursion, although he confessed to having some fears. I hope we don’t need to postpone the trip.”
Me too. Thinking about what Caramort
had said, about the note from Samael, about the message light blinking on my mirror over in the corner, I realized there was a lot that would most likely need to be postponed.
“I don’t know. There’s a lot going on right now.”
“You used to tell me about these things,” Gregory said. “You used to tell me about the things you were facing, to ask my advice about how to proceed. Lately I feel there is so much you are keeping from me.”
“You’re busy. And you don’t tell me everything either.”
“I took you to see the enforcer and the gate guardian. I share with you things that I don’t share with the Ruling Council because I love you. I wish you would share your troubles with me as you used to.”
And now I felt horribly guilty, but I didn’t want him to know about Samael until I was sure.
He turned to look at me, his eyes searching mine. “Is it because of what I said? That I doubted your ability to hold and rule Hel and its inhabitants? That wasn’t meant as a personal slight. I admire you, Cockroach. You have skills beyond what I can even fathom. But you are young, and the skills you have might not translate well into leading a group of demons and former angels. Recognizing that doesn’t mean I don’t respect and revere who you are.”
“That’s not it.” I looked down at my lap and picked at a loose thread on my jeans. “I’ve been tracking down who’s responsible for the enforcer deaths. I…there’s a lot that’s rumor and I don’t want to cause a panic until I’ve confirmed things, but there’s one bit of intel in particular I need to let you know.”
“Tell me.” His spirit-self rubbed against mine, his voice deep and soft.
“I interrogated a demon who I believe was tangentially involved in the enforcer deaths. He said it was a targeted move to get you to bring your strongest enforcers to the gates. My informant says that they are going to strike the gates all at once and kill the enforcers and gate guardians, depriving you of your best fighters as well as allowing them to bring a huge army from Hel.”