by Debra Dunbar
One of us was going to have to give in. I knew it would have to be me. We made our way toward our gate, me sneaking quick glances at him as he walked, brooding, beside me.
“All right, all right. You win round one. With the blue stuff and your angelic magnetism you clearly can overcome any human security measure. I admit defeat and bow down to your superior skills.”
Nothing. Actually, his scowl grew more menacing.
“Are we still friends?” I teased. “How long are you going to be mad at me?”
Nothing.
“Come on. How about I buy you a drink? A make–amends cocktail? Or a blow job? That always cheers Wyatt up.”
He halted, grabbed my arm and yanked me around to face him. “I do not consume food or drink, and I have no need to experience human reproductive methods. When will you get that through your thick head?”
I didn’t think it was a good time to mention that blow jobs had nothing to do with human reproduction, but I couldn’t resist pushing him further.
“I’m an imp,” I mocked. “I seize every opportunity to piss you off and cause trouble. When will you get that through your thick head.”
I’d been teasing him horribly, and this was a sore spot I loved to dig into. I just couldn’t help myself. The stupid Ruling Council reports, worrying over Nyalla and Amber, having hardly any time to spend with Wyatt — it was all a heavy weight crushing me. I had spent so much time lately tip–toeing around Wyatt, that this was a relief to act out, to be an imp. Plus, annoying him and having him react in such a way was fun, the only fun I seemed to be having in the last couple of days.
“You are in danger of being accused of killing an angel, being executed as punishment for his murder. Stop playing around and get serious.”
I looked up at him. Serious. He wanted me to be serious. Gregory shook his head as if recognizing the absurdity of his command and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Truce. But only if you stop this incessant nagging about sexual organs and attempts at physical stimulation. I have no desire to indulge in that sort of thing, and I’m annoyed that you won’t let the topic rest.”
I felt hurt …and somewhat angry.
“Too fucking bad. This is who I am. I’m a demon, an imp. I ‘wallow in physical sensation like a pig’. I am annoying — a pain in the ass. Either like me the way I am, or not. Stop trying to pretend I’m a fallen angel you can bring back into the fold. It’s insulting.”
For a split second, he looked shocked, then that cold mask descended over his face. “Fine. I thought you had potential, but I can’t drag you unwilling into the light. You just keep on being a demon, but don’t expect me to join you. I’m not going to descend to that level — ever.”
I deserved this. He was right — I needed to stop pestering him and start taking my duties more seriously, even though I was an imp. But it wasn’t really the loss of my favorite topic that saddened me, it was the fact that whatever relationship we had would only be on his terms. He’d never share a cup of coffee with me, never kiss me. Never. My relationship with Wyatt was damaged because he couldn’t fully accept who I was. Yes, we were still friends with benefits. Yes, we’d always love each other, but we were broken and it was killing me to see the scars and think about what we might have had. The same thing was happening with Gregory. I felt a wave of sadness. I should just go home, go back to Hel where I could be a demon and not have the people I love constantly trying to change me.
“Fine.” My voice was barely audible, and I just couldn’t look at him. I pulled away from his hands and turned to walk to the terminal. This was going to be a long flight, out and back. And all I wanted to do right now was curl up in my bed — alone.
~12~
Gregory directed me to leave the rental car a few blocks away from our destination. It was a beautiful summer day in Seattle. The Fremont area rocked with action, and a wave of nostalgia hit me. It had been so long since I’d been here. The neighborhood had always been a bit funky, but it had somehow turned hipster, upscale, over the years. Smart coffee shops and ethnic eateries flanked shops selling sculptures and original paintings. The smell of sandalwood and myrrh wafted from the open door of a shabby–chic gift shop. I longed to explore, familiarize myself with my old stomping grounds, but we had a dead body to examine, and Gregory was clearly in no mood for play.
“There is an angel standing guard,” he told me as we turned right on N. 35th street. “I’m going to go in, relieve him of duty, then walk outside to question him about the demon while you sneak in. Make sure he doesn’t see you.”
I nodded. No one was supposed to know I was here, or that there was anything suspicious about this dead demon. Just a routine incident, with Gregory here to do the paperwork.
We turned onto Evanston, and I headed left at the next block so I could sneak down Dayton and come at the house from the other end of the block. As I peered around the corner, I saw Gregory stride out of sight with another angel. That was my cue. Trying to not look out of place, I strode down Evanston and up to the six–foot–high privacy fence. Behind the gate, the yard was covered in wooden plank decking with a decorative array of potted flowers leading toward the 1900’s era house
It was a smallish house, with artistically weathered, grey wood siding and a porch barely large enough for the white, wooden rocker. The neighboring houses were tightly wedged in their respective lots, a scant few feet away. Even with the close proximity, no neighbors seemed to notice a woman walking up to and through the front door.
The inside confirmed why this house would fetch over half a million on the market. Pristine cherry floors in the foyer led up a narrow staircase to the left. I opened the door to a downstairs powder room and found modern bathroom fixtures but no dead demons. To the right, the walls of what had been a segmented house had been knocked out to make one large room. Cherry floors continued into the main room where a modern dinette sat in front of a turn–of–the–century fireplace. Overstuffed sofas and loveseats created a living area, and an open doorway led to a quaint, modernized antique–style kitchen.
Enormous bay windows surrounded a breakfast nook next to the narrow kitchen with its 1950’s replica stove and tiled countertops. The backyard out the bay windows was small, but between the six–foot–tall privacy fence, the yard was verdant and full of heirloom roses and irises. I loved this little house. If I hadn’t been so attached to my home in Maryland and my life there, I would have been tempted to oust the current owner and snag it for my own. There was no demon in the backyard, so I turned my attention to the narrow, elegant kitchen extending the width of the house.
It was a beautiful kitchen, but it was a pigsty. A pot on the stove contained hardened noodles, empty beer bottles lay on the floor and spilled out of the garbage can, dishes in the sink were piled high. The floor was covered with muddy footprints and spills, and a sticky chair lay overturned by the doorway. I frowned, perplexed at the difference between the care that had been lavished on the rest of the house and the utter neglect of hygiene in the kitchen. Demons. They were downright weird.
I walked back through the living/dining area to make my way upstairs and saw the angels through the bay window. Damn. I didn’t exactly want to crawl, but I had no choice. Luckily, the fabulous cherry floors were highly polished, and I managed to scoot under the windows and through the living room into the foyer.
I trotted up the stairs and smelled the deceased before I actually saw him. Blood has a special odor, especially in such a large quantity. As I walked into the first bedroom, I saw a decorative design of red covering the walls and floors. For a moment, I wondered if it were from the dead demon or one of his human playthings. Gregory had said the other demons hadn’t shown any sign of injury, but perhaps this one was different. Could the devouring spirit now be torturing his victims? Or perhaps this one fought back.
Walking around the massive oak dresser, I saw a twisted body on the floor. Something stirred my memory to see him there, legs splaye
d and arms outstretched, his head half under the bed. What an undignified way to go. The room was unremarkable other than the blood on the walls and the body on the floor, so without further ado, I yanked him by his legs. Might as well get this over with and fly back home. As his head came into view, I stopped, frozen. Cold iced my veins and all sound receded into the distance. I knew this demon. I knew him well.
Baphomet. I dropped to my knees and ran my energy through him, but found nothing to confirm the demon he’d been before his death. But I knew. I recognized this human form all too well — it had been his favorite. We’d won and lost bets with each other over the centuries, trading items and favors as our luck came and went. Time and time again, I’d lost fireball launchers, bladed snares, and even Boomer to him, only to win them all back. My luck always returned, his evidently hadn’t.
Grief washed over me in waves. Baphomet had been a good friend. Yes, he’d tried to kill me a few times, but I’d done the same to him. We’d had good times together, and, in a way, he’d been instrumental in beginning my whole extended vacation here among the humans. We used to connect regularly, run off to cause trouble every year or so, but over the decades, our times together grew further and further apart. I hadn’t seen him in nearly five years, and the last time the differences between us were becoming clear. He was a demon, and I’d begun to turn into something else.
I ran my hands over the cold flesh, no longer the warm, dark brown I remembered. I touched his high cheekbones and short ebony hair. I mourned, not just for Baphomet, but for our friendship that had begun a slow death years ago. And I mourned for me, for the demon that I used to be. Life was so much easier then, when I didn’t care. Now everything I did had a ripple effect. I was aware of the future my actions affected. It wasn’t just the impact analysis required for the four–nine–five reports; I’d learned firsthand how much pain I could cause Wyatt and all the other beings I’d come to care for. Yes, life had been easier, more carefree as a demon, but I wasn’t a demon anymore. There was no use crying over my past, and no use crying over this corpse before me. The only thing I could do for Baphomet right now was find his killer.
Who could have done this to him? We demons all have a host of enemies, but devouring wasn’t a common skill. Each time I’d done it, I’d been defending myself against a far stronger foe. It has always been a last–ditch effort when all hope seemed lost. The only time I’d devoured as an unprovoked attack had been involuntary — when I was a child and had been learning to breed. It was one of the reasons I was so reluctant to procreate. I was terrified it would happen again — that I’d be seized with the urge to consume and wind up killing my partner.
Baphomet didn’t look like he’d been locked in battle before his death. The blood on the walls didn’t seem to have come from him. There wasn’t a mark on him, not even a paper cut, let alone something significant enough to have caused his death. Even if he’d been torturing a Low, he should have little scrapes and cuts at the very least. If he’d been fighting a devouring demon, there should have been some visible injury.
That left the possibility of ambush. I couldn’t imagine he’d be breeding outside of Hel. Could someone possibly be using devouring as an assassination technique? It would be very effective, but would require planning combined with ruthlessness — a combination uncommon among all but the highest demons.
Taking a deep breath, I scanned him as thoroughly as I could. There was no remnant of demon energy whatsoever in the corpse, but as with the last head, right at the front of the neck, I caught a faint trace of that slippery energy. I concentrated and extended myself into his cells, cataloging each one in detail as I traced the indistinct line that circled his neck. It was still active, slippery and blocking my energy as I explored it. I’d encountered this sort of thing before, but what the angels used and what I’d experienced at the hands of elves and sorcerers wasn’t quite the same.
I sat back on my heels and frowned down at Baphomet. The energy was too faint to assign to any specific species, but that wasn’t what perplexed me the most. It was the placement that had my mind in a whirl. Neck. The angels didn’t fool around. They always went right to the source and coated our stash of energy deep inside to prohibit our usage of it. Elves employed a net technique, encasing our entire bodies and blocking physical attack as well as an energy one. Why neck?
Restrained at the neck, Baphomet might still be able to heal some internal injuries but not be able to convert his entire body into another form. He would have been like a dog on a leash, one with all his physical abilities still available. With demons, energy attacks are only part of the equation. We are just as dangerous with only the strength of our corporeal form, as I’d proven time and time again. An elf would never have just restrained a demon’s neck. Neither would an angel. Unless…
I searched again, every cell. I had no idea how long it took me, no sense of anything outside my focused examination. By the time I sat back, the shadows were long across the floor, and I sensed the presence of my angel behind me.
“Did you find anything?” His voice was soft and kind, as if he’d intuited my earlier grief.
“No.” I lied. I’d found plenty, but none of it made any sense. Baphomet had been restrained at the wrists, ankles and neck, leaving his energy accessible through his core. I couldn’t see any reason for it, and couldn’t see any connection between those faded traces and the devouring spirit that had killed him. Perhaps the restrain marks were just a fluke, something unconnected with their deaths. Or perhaps the devouring demon had purchased this type of thing from the elves and used it to keep his victims from fighting back. None of it made sense.
“Sahiviel suspects there was a different demon that lived in this house. Neighbors say that the deceased demon would come here frequently to visit, and that the individual residing here left about a day or so before this one’s time of death.”
I stood and took one last look at Baphomet before turning to face Gregory.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Do you want me to check the house for any hints of another demon?”
“Can you do that?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t find any energy traces, but demons don’t live exactly as humans do. Sometimes there are telltale signs.”
I searched the house, but couldn’t find anything to corroborate what the neighbors had claimed. The only thing I did find was a pocket mirror — a small communication device similar to the one I had at home. I’d been meaning to get a portable one to stay in better contact with Dar and my household, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Checking to make sure Gregory was in the other room, I pocketed the mirror. If a demon had lived here, I’d try and contact his household through the device later and see what information I could glean from them. It was a long shot. Many households, mine included, didn’t always know the details of what was happening on the other side of the gates.
I shook my head at Gregory as I walked back into the bedroom. I wondered what they’d do with Baphomet’s body. Not that it really mattered. It just bothered me to see him there, lifeless and twisted on the floor.
“How confident is your angel buddy that there was a second demon? Does he have some way of tracking the guy? Because, otherwise, I think we’re at another dead–end.”
“We have a description, but unless he tries to go through a gate or goes on a killing spree, it’s unlikely we’ll run across him. There are only so many angels here, and you demons are good at blending in with the humans when you want to.”
“So if he continues this one–off, demon here, demon there thing, we’ll probably never catch him?” It was a depressing prospect. I looked again at Baphomet’s body, wondering what I could do to find this guy before he killed again.
“He’ll escalate.” Gregory didn’t sound too happy. “They always do.”
“Escalate? You mean because he’s a demon and we enjoy mass murder?” I had a bad feeling I didn’t want to know the answer to my question.
I struggled to take a breath. “What …what do you mean, everything? ”
His gaze grew intense. “All life, all matter, the entire universe if they’re unchecked.”
I felt like I was suffocating. “How many? How many have you angels killed over the ages?”
“Ten. Eight of them in the last millennium. Eventually there will be too many, and they’ll come too fast for us to kill. One will slip through and herald in the apocalypse, devouring all creation.”
“So there is no solution but to kill them? What did you all do when we lived in Aaru? Kill us at birth?” “Them” had become “us”. I felt like lead weights were pressing on my chest. I devoured, but I had it under control. I couldn’t believe that someday I’d snap and go on a rampage, that Gregory would be forced to kill me.
“There were no devouring spirits when you were in Aaru — you were Angels of Chaos then. Devouring spirits are an anomaly that seems to have occurred with the devolution of your species.”
I stared at him, mute with dread at his words, and what I knew would come next.
“I should have killed you the moment I found out,” he said, clearly miserable at the idea. “I’m putting my own selfish desires ahead of what’s best for the entirety of creation.”
“But I’m okay,” I choked out. “I didn’t kill those demons, or that angel. The universe is safe from me.”
He shook his head, eyes still locked with mine. “One day you won’t be. Something will happen, or you’ll reach a certain age, and you’ll snap. There won’t be any warning, and who knows how much of the planet, or beyond, you’ll consume before we manage to stop you. If we manage to stop you.”