by Debra Dunbar
“Who is it then? You know the Ancients who fellFell. Who could pull this kind of thing off?”
She shook her head. “No one that lived, that much I know. Unless some Ancient acquired some astonishing skills in Hel the last two million years.”
“So you’re on my side now?”
A faint smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got the sword. You’ve got dragons at your beck and call. You devour without any sense of shame whatsoever. You’re banging an archangel—the archangel.” Suddenly the smile was gone. “Did you meant it when you offered me some demon lands here? I might be interested if that offer is still on the table.”
“It is, although I can’t tell you whether it would happen in the next year or the next three thousand years.” I nodded. “But the deal is still on the table. Would you be interested in perhaps a top political appointment overseeing California? Or a chunk of western Canada?”
“Put me in charge of it all, and both I and my household will be at your disposal, Iblis.”
I frowned. “As the Iblis, you and your household are already at my disposal, but consider it a deal.” I had enough on my plate without adding the governance of demon-lands-in-human-territory to it. What should we call this place? New Hel, or something like that?
Two thousand, one hundred three, of those only five hundred eighty were still in the city. Damn. Remind me never to mess with a horde of treasure-hungry dragons.
“Hang on a second,” I told Doriel as I pulled out my phone and sent another text. “Okay, here’s the deal. The dragons have either killed or chased most of the demons out of the city. The angels are moving in to secure it and begin to push the demons northward toward Seattle. My goal is to leave access to the gateway open so that any demons who wish to leave Samael and return home may do so. Any demon who returns to Hel will not face my wrath for this little adventure. Those who stay and fight are fucked.”
“You do realize he has thirty thousand demons here,” Doriel commented. “All seven gates were taken and we…I mean they now hold the areas surrounding them.”
“Nope. Only two gates fell—Seattle and Bogota.”
She caught her breath. “So either Samael lied, or he doesn’t know.”
“How many demons are here if they were only able to use those two gates?” I tried to sense the number, but only got a vague idea. Ten thousand? Maybe?
“Those were the biggest armies, so I’d say roughly seven thousand, most of them through Seattle. Although if the armies couldn’t get through the other gates, they’d just move to the ones we secured and come through them. By the end of the day, you’ll still have about thirty thousand demons to deal with.” She hesitated a second, her eyes searching mine. “What do you want me to do? Should I call my household back across the gates in a retreat to Hel? They account for approximately two thousand of the demons on this continent.”
“No, I want you to stay here. Be ready to fight on my side, both you and all of your household, upon my command, but in the meantime stay close to Samael. Head out of the city and rejoin him. Figure out what his plans are and let me know what’s going on.”
She nodded. “Whoever this is, he’s smart and powerful. I won’t be able to just pop over to your house and give you an update, but I’ll figure out a way to contact you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Get a fucking cell phone.” I looked around the room and grabbed an old band flyer off the floor, ripping a piece off of it and scribbling my number on it with a pencil I found on the bar. “Here. If you can’t figure out how to use the phone, then have one of the Lows show you. If you guys are going to live here, you’ll need to learn this stuff.”
Doriel left and I headed outside the club, wings outstretched and sword in hand to wait. I could see smoke in the distance and counted at least ten dragons on the wing above the city—one of them stinking huge. I had no fucking idea what Sparky or the Italian dragons would want in exchange for their assistance beyond looting the jewelry stores, but whatever it was, was totally worth it. The demons still alive had left the city. I could see by the roads and interstates that the humans were taking this opportunity to flee. With any luck, most of them would be clear of the state before the demons regrouped. And when this was all over, we’d need to find a way to rebuild. Between the demons, and now the dragons, the city and its infrastructure had suffered considerable damage. I had no doubt Doriel could handle it. She was the right Ancient to put in charge of this whole thing. It would give her purpose and I could tell she had enough organizational skill and common sense to keep the demons under control and create a decent place for humans to live in relative safety and freedom.
It was getting close to dusk when Gregory appeared. Actually, he’d shown up a bit earlier than I’d expected.
“City secure?” I asked. There hadn’t been a demon in the city for the last hour, and the dragons were long gone.
“Yes, it’s secure.” He walked toward me, shaking his head with a short laugh. “I should have known better than to doubt you. Nyalla called me a few hours ago telling me that some demon messenger had shown up at the house with a story of how you were captured and being held hostage in return for my surrender. I’ll admit that I had a moment of fear, especially after she told me who had allegedly sent him. Was that demon completely lying?”
With rare exceptions, demons couldn’t teleport, so the messenger Samael had sent had needed to take a plane. The surprising part was that he’d managed to find one flying out of LA to Baltimore, and board it. Or maybe he’d snatched up some pilot and hijacked one of his own. Or maybe the guy Owned a soul who knew how to fly. Either way, it was a six-hour nonstop to Baltimore, then at least thirty minutes to my house. I’d figured this would all be over by the time he arrived, but I guess not.
I patted the space beside me on the curb. “No, he wasn’t lying. I tried reason, then I tried an assassination attempt. Did some damage. Got a fuckton more scars to my spirit-self. Ended up in a net suspended from the ceiling for a bit. Luckily these idiots didn’t think to search me for a cell phone. Or realize that the Iblis sword can cut through an elven net.”
He sighed and sat beside me. “And Samael? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because no one’s heard a peep out of the guy since the fall. Suddenly he shows up out of nowhere and starts talking revenge and promising complete annihilation of all life like some comic book villain? The guy looked like Samael. His spirit-self had the same scars. His energy signature was the same. An Ancient knew him felt confident it was him, but I just wasn’t sure.” I shifted sideways to face Gregory. “If it wasn’t him, I wanted to find out before you and your siblings heard Samael was alive and went all weird and emotional and did something stupid. And if it was him…well, I wanted to kill him before you had to hear him rant about how much he hated you and how you ruined his life.”
“Maybe I deserve to hear that.”
“Maybe you do, but I still wanted to kill him and spare you that pain. It’s what angels in love do for each other—protect and shove a sword through our lover’s enemies.”
That didn’t even get a smile out of him. “So is it? Him?”
I could tell him about the sword, and what Doriel said, but instead I reached out with my spirit-self to caress him, easing myself into him along the edges. “Come here. I want to show you something.”
Now that got a smile out of him. “Sometimes your timing is far off the mark, Cockroach. Unless you’re trying to distract me from the topic at hand?”
“No, I’m trying to show you something, and you can only do that while I’m holding it.” I let that sink in a moment. “You need to join enough with me to see it.”
“You tried to devour my brother.” He pulled his spirit-self away and glared down at me. “Attempting to run him through with his own sword is bad enough, but you tried to devour him?”
“Technically it’s not his sword anymore,” I waved a dismissive hand. “And yes, I tried to devour him. Samael is suppose
dly your equal, if not your better, when it comes to power and fighting ability. I had to pull out all my tricks. I devour. It’s what I do. It’s my icky demon superpower.”
“Samael is not my equal.” He said it with a fond edge to his voice that told me this was a longstanding, friendly argument between the two.
“Babe, no one is your equal.” I scooched my spirit-self over against him once more. “Now come here so I can show this to you.”
He muttered something about gross body parts, even more revolting when they were your brother’s, but complied. Once he was merged enough with me that I was sure he could get a good look, I brought out the portion of Samael I’d ripped away.
Gregory caught his breath. I felt his wince of repulsion. Didn’t bother me. I was used to demons thinking I was a monster for my devouring. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to know that angels would be doubly grossed out.
A monster among demons. That was me. I wondered sometimes if that was what made the sword choose me? An imp devourer carrying around an archangel’s essence? I’ll bet that would make any sentient weapon sit up and take notice.
“That’s…” I felt him scrutinize the personal energy more closely, poking and prodding at it as I had done. “On the surface it’s exactly like the Samael I fought with in the last battle.”
“And…” I encouraged.
“We are all constantly changing and evolving. I’d expect to recognize Samael right away. He’s my brother. We’ve spent billions of years together, and there are some things about an angel that never change, a core of their being, a certain signature. But with the fall, and nearly three million years in Hel, I’d expect there to be some changes in him.”
“It’s too perfect, too clean,” I agreed. “The Ancients have all suffered horrible degradation in both their spirit-beings and in their physical manifestations. That’s one of the reasons none of them seem to be able to reside in their spirit-forms anymore, even in Aaru.”
“But if he’d been slumbering all this while…” I heard the same longing in Gregory’s voice that I’d heard in Doriel’s—the urge to overlook the obvious and continue to have some hope.
“Look underneath,” I urged. “See what’s behind the veneer of Samael-like energy.”
He examined it once more and I felt him recoil. “That can’t be Samael.”
“It’s not. And he acts like a demon instead of an Ancient,” I told Gregory. “I was face-to-face with him, spoke with him, fought with him. Admittedly, the Ancients in Hel are more demonic than angelic at this point, but with such a pristine energy signature, I would have expected different. There’s a disconnect.”
“Hmmm.” Again, I felt his reluctance.
“He’s nothing like you and the others,” I told Gregory. “I know you all. And I especially know you. There would have been a spark, some similarity that identified him as one of the archangels. If I took away his physical form and this energy signature, he seemed like just some random Ancient to me.”
Gregory sighed. “It’s not Samael. I can tell it’s not him, but I’d hoped… If this isn’t him, then surely he is dead as I’d always feared.”
Feared because Gregory would always carry the guilt for that death. It would be as if he’d followed through on his swing and killed his brother right there on the battlefield with a dishonorable blow. Worse, because he’d banished his beloved brother to his death.
“I don’t know,” I mused. “Can you see Samael allowing an imposter to pose as him without challenge? Would the Samael you know ever have done that?”
He shook his head. “Never. Pride was his downfall just as it was mine.”
I reached out to touch his arm, still keeping my connection with his spirit-self. “I know this is painful, but the fact that this guy is a fake makes our job a lot easier. There won’t be any regret or hesitation when the time comes to kill him.”
Gregory looked around. “Do you think he’ll regroup?”
“Definitely.” I stood and stretched. “They haven’t all gone back to Hel, they’ve just scattered, and I can’t rely upon dragons beyond this one favor. This was a one-deal thing for me. We need to get as many of the humans clear of the demon-held areas as possible, then prepare for a war, because it won’t be more than a few days before they’re back. And plenty of Ancients still think he’s Samael. They’ll rally behind him. Heck, most of the demons following him don’t even give a shit whether he’s Samael or not. He’s an Ancient. He’s offering them some fun and a chance to stick it to the angels. He’ll have no problem finding an army to follow him.”
Gregory stood as well. “Are demons so short-sighted? That messenger told Nyalla what this Samael had planned. Would demons really destroy all life here just for fun and to stick it to us?”
I shrugged. “Maybe? And then they’d be irked afterward that they’d just ruined their playground. More likely they’ll turn LA to a pile of rubble, kill a million humans and a few hundred angels, then get bored and go home, leaving this fake-Samael to throw a tantrum about how unreliable they all are.”
Gregory chuckled. “Just between you and me, I’m starting to become rather fond of demons.”
I wrapped my arms around him and snuggled into his chest. “One demon in particular?”
He did the same, crushing me with his embrace. “Well, she’s not really a demon anymore, is she?”
I grinned. “When it suits me, I’m plenty demon.” Then I suddenly thought of something. “Hey, what did Nyalla do with that messenger from fake-Samael anyway?”
I felt the rumble of Gregory’s laugh. “I believe she has him chained up in the basement with Boomer standing watch over him.”
Grinning into Gregory’s shirt, I laughed too. Poor guy. I’d throw him in my dungeon back in Hel when I returned, and he’d probably find that an improvement over whatever Nyalla and Boomer had subjected him to. Yeah, poor guy indeed.
Chapter 19
“Snip, where’s Gimlet?” The Low wasn’t part of my household, but he’d certainly been hanging around my household enough lately to be considered one. After spending the evening in Hel, having a rather enlightening conversation with my new prisoner, I’d rehashed all I knewI’d known about the Samael of legend as well as this imposter dude. Some improbable suspicions I’d harbored over the last few months about Gimlet had bubbled up to the surface. There was that fire demon in Seattle that he’d beheaded, the note on my dining room table, and a few other things I wanted to chat with the Low about.
“He comes and goes,” Snip replied.
“Yes, but where is he now?” I pressed.
“Not here.”
“Do you know where he is? When he’s due back? Do you have his cell number or some means of contacting him?” I really wanted to hash this out with Gimlet before I met with the angels to strategize our counterattack.
“I don’t know if he has a cell phone or not. Usually if you want him, you just ask around and he either shows up or he doesn’t. It’s no good to chase him down because usually by the time you get to where someone saw him, he’s not there anymore.”
Great. “Can you put the word out that I need to see him immediately? Tell everyone that I’ve got something for him. And then—”
“What?” Snip asked.
I blinked at him a few times. “What, what?”
“What do you have for Gimlet? Might make a difference in whether he shows up. Or whether he shows up this century or not.”
I’d been lying about that, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make the lie more specific. “What does Gimlet like? What might convince him to hustle his ass here yesterday?”
“Cookies,” Snip answered promptly. “Cookies and milk.”
Okaaaaay. Maybe this wouldn’t be that much of a lie after all. I liked cookies. Of course, I liked mine with a shot of vodka, or a bottle of beer, or at least a cup of coffee, not milk. “What kind of cookies?”
“Oatmeal raisin.”
What kind of sick fuck was this guy? “
Not chocolate chip? Because sometimes those raisins look like chocolate chips, then you get a nasty shock when you bite into them.”
“Oatmeal raisin,” Snip repeated. “Occasionally apple spice, but only with chunks of apple in them, not that artificial flavoring stuff. And it has to be whole milk, not skim or two percent, because demons don’t need to be on no fucking diet.”
I got the impression that last was a direct quote from the other Low. Damn. Why couldn’t the guy like chocolate chip, or at the very least Oreos? Now I’d need to run by the store. At least I had the milk, mainly because Gregory liked to put a fucking gallon of it in his coffee, and he too liked the full-fat version.
“Then spread the word that I’ve got oatmeal raisin cookies and whole milk for Gimlet if he shows up. And he better hurry unless he likes stale cookies.”
“Got it.” Snip saluted.
“Also, get a message to Tasma, Zalanes, Orias, Malphas, and Harkel and let them know that I need their households ready for battle. Oh, and Terrelle, Cheros, and Nils as well. This is a moment’s notice thing. I call, and they need to transport themselves to the location I provide, whether by teleportation, elf button, gateway, or a fucking Uber, I don’t care. I call and they might have ten minutes to be there. If they refuse to show up, I’ll consider that a direct rebellion. Those who refuse to follow my directives will have their households confiscated and might end up dead or in my dungeon depending on my mood at the time.” It was time to get serious. I was going up against thirty thousand demons and a bunch of Ancients. I wasn’t going to show up to the battle empty handed.
“Got it.”
“Contact Kirby in Libertytown, and Gareth in Dis and let them know that I need wands, staffs, amulets, and anything else they have ready to go. Offensive, defensive, even random crap.”