by Debra Dunbar
Better future state for whom? I knew he loved Aaru, that he and his siblings were the eldest, the ones who formed their heavenly home. I sympathized, but to trade the humans and their home for Aaru wasn’t acceptable. And it wasn’t like the angel I’d come to love to propose such a thing.
He ran a hand through his chestnut-colored curls, the lines on his face deepening. “There will be a transition. The Grigori will remain until the elves can take over. You know the Ruling Council. This whole thing could take thirty thousand years.”
“And then what? You’ll take your angels and go home, close the doors of Aaru? And all the guidance you’ve provided for the humans to this point? They will be out of your hands forever. All the angels who had hopes of finding a demon to mate, or even to create offspring with will leave. Asta will never see Dar again.” My voice hitched. “I’ll never see you again.”
His black eyes were wild, and I knew he was desperate and not thinking things through. Where was his omnipotence when he needed it? Perhaps these things only worked at a certain vibration level?
“You can come with me to Aaru. You’re a member of the Ruling Council, an Angel of Chaos.”
Right. “You heard the petition at the Ruling Council meeting. They blame me for this whole mess. I’m not welcome in Aaru. I’m sure they’ll find a way to do away with the clause that allows the Iblis visitation rights,” I told him. “And even if they don’t, I cannot turn my back on my household, on my humans, on Hel. I won’t. Even for you, I won’t.”
“I may lose Aaru,” he hissed. “I’ll have fallen. I’ll be banished. I can’t lose my home, the place I helped form. I can’t.”
“Then fight harder.” I saw the look on his face and reached up a hand to touch his cheek. “I’ll be by your side. I’ll bring a whole host of demons to the party. I’ll bring the Nephilim, the werewolves. Heck, I’ll even bring a little red dragon. Just fight harder. This doesn’t have to be you or me. There has to be a solution that’s us.”
He hesitated, an odd light coming into his eyes. “Cockroach, I’ve got an idea. You…that might just work. I’ll need you and the demons of Hel to join in this fight.”
I had no clue how that was going to help. “Sounds to me like it would just make things worse.”
Gregory shook his head. “I refuse to accept the rebels’ demands. They refuse to change. If it’s going to come down to a war, then I want to make sure we win it.”
He was crazy. He’d completely lost his mind. Demons fighting angels? “That didn’t exactly work out so well last time, remember? The Angels of Chaos lost. We’re demons now. What makes you think that this time we’d win?”
“Because this time you’ll have half of the Angels of Order on your side. Because this time instead of one archangel against three, we’ll all be united.”
Crazy. I was supposed to be the insane one, not him. “How am I supposed to get everyone up there, though? I’m not very good when I need to teleport more than three or four. And I hate to tell you this, but no one in Hel gives two shits about me being the Iblis. I don’t have an army, and last time I checked I was the only Angel of Chaos—”
“We won’t need an army or the Ancients.” Gregory smiled, and I saw that the angel I loved was back. “We just need demons. We need as many demons as you can manage.”
Chapter 12
Gregory took off right after his revelation, muttering something about needing to pull together a location for the elves’ ten thousand year orientation program. I had no idea what he intended me to do about my half-joking suggestion of raising a demon army. I didn’t have a demon army, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure what we’d gain by storming Aaru. Did Gregory plan to do away with the rebels and have the demons and remaining angels live in Aaru side by side? If so, he had a bit of a shock coming. My demons would be happy to go to Aaru and kick some angel ass, but I couldn’t see any of them wanting to actually live there. Nobody except perhaps a few of the Ancients were the slightest bit interested in setting up residence in Aaru.
I couldn’t spent too much time thinking about it because I needed to get my ass to Iowa. Bob was near panic by the time I’d made my way downstairs for morning coffee and breakfast. It seemed that instead of a dozen elves, this particular migration numbered approximately fifty.
Fifty. There was no way I could send them all back to Hel. It would take me days to transport that many. Instead maybe I could rent a bus and haul them all to the gate in Columbia Mall—or the ruins of what used to be Columbia Mall before a crazy demon hyped up on a magical power increase destroyed it. It would be a long drive. The elves would sing, no doubt. Or scream depending on how much exposed metal there was in the bus.
Maybe I should just kill them and hide the bodies instead. I sighed and teleported myself along with Little Red for assistance, to the spot Bob had indicated, resigning myself to the fact that I was going to be going back and forth to Hel for the next two days. Of course, since I’d delayed in going there was no guarantee the elves were still all together. Fifty. They could have split up into pairs. It would take me weeks to track them all down. And then…yeah, I wished I could just kill them.
Come to find out, the humans had beaten me to it—they’d managed to kill six of the fifty before I’d arrived. Two I found on the highway where their arrival point had been, squished into roadkill. Two a quarter-mile down the interstate had fallen off an overpass, and then were squished into roadkill. The remaining two…well, that was a different story. I wasn’t sure exactly how they’d died. All I could tell was that after tracking their progress I found them dead in a field, looking like they’d suddenly developed a horrible disease that covered their face and body with oozy-red blistery things.
Iron and steel, and now something else? A fast-acting bacteria that the elves were susceptible to? Another allergy, this time to the soybeans in the field? Soy and metal allergies. They were pretty much fucked if that was the case. It was almost as bad as being allergic to plastics.
The good news was their corpses would provide a wonderful warning to the other elves planning on immigrating here. I just needed to make sure I got to the right location in Hel where I could display their bodies to best effect, spreading the news of the horrible death that awaited any elves foolish enough to try to live among the humans. Horrible death would hopefully be an adequate deterrent.
Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get close enough to the corpses to transport them. Because there was a farmer. With a gun. And he shot me. Repeatedly.
I’m not easy to kill, so I held my ground and tried to explain the situation.
“I’m an angel,” I told him, revealing my wings. He shot me again and I quickly hid the wings. He could fill my body full of lead all he wanted, but shooting my wings would hurt—it would hurt down deep to my spirit self. I had enough scars, and I still wasn’t recovered fully from the fight at the Marriott.
Actually the shot wasn’t lead. It was steel. Shit on a stick, that’s what happened to these elves. It wasn’t disease that killed them, it was buckshot.
“I’m an angel,” I repeated. “You just killed two elves. No biggie. I’m not calling the cops or anything. I just need to grab their bodies so I can make sure other elves don’t bother you like this.”
“Get off my property.” And he shot me again.
I wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy. He had to sleep, or go out for groceries, sometime. I’d be back, and I’d grab the bodies then. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too decomposed by the time I managed to collect them. In the meantime I had forty-four more elves to find.
I spent the rest of the morning scouring the highways, corn and soybean fields to no avail. Little Red was no help at all. After he’d caused his third multiple-car collision and set yet another field on fire, I took him back home. Maybe I’d just leave these elves in Iowa. I was beginning to think that Gregory was right, that the humans were fully capable of taking care of themselves. At least I thought that until Nyalla texted me the la
test news that revealed one of the Hidden was running for political office in Iceland after the human who had held the position had unfortunately choked to death on a piece of chicken.
Right. Like I believed that. It wouldn’t be long before the humans were cleaning toilets and living in the garage while the elves ran the country. Mark my words.
Sloth might be one of my favorite sins, but I needed to do the unpleasant thing and keep searching. These elves in Iowa needed to go, and it probably wasn’t good for my vibration levels to let the humans run them over and shoot them dead either. Not that I usually gave a shit about my vibration levels, but with all the crap going on in Aaru, I should probably make an effort. If I meditated every now and then and rescued a few kittens and puppies, maybe the angels in Aaru would be more inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt.
Nah. I was getting nowhere with these elves in Iowa, and it was getting late, so I called Gregory. He’d just left this morning. I knew he was busy, but hopefully he could pause the war for a moment and give me some advice.
Instead of answering his cell phone, he appeared in my kitchen. Which was even better. I hugged him tight, then explained the situation to him.
He frowned. “The other elves have to be close by. Six dead? They’re probably terrified of the humans. I’m sure they’re hiding near the highway or that farmer’s field.”
“And if the farmer stopped trying to kill me, maybe he could tell me where they ran off to,” I complained. “I’m sure there were more than the two dead ones who were in his field. And if he shot the others, they may be injured. I’d go back and nose around a bit, but I’m tired of getting shot at. I’m still picking pellets out of my ass.”
“I’ll help.”
I could barely contain my shock at the angel’s offer. “What about Aaru? I don’t want to take you away from things there.”
“Gabriel is holding it for now. What do you want to do with these elves once we find them? I don’t have the island ready for them yet. It’s probably going to take me a few days, more if fighting breaks out once again in Aaru.”
“You found an island?” I was astounded. Angels measured time in billions of years. When one of them got their ass in gear and expedited shit, it always amazed me. “You seriously found an island in the time between our bedroom cuddle and now? That’s like three hours, tops.”
“I found an island. It’s in the South Pacific, secured and hidden from the humans. Three Grigori are there now, preparing it. I’m hoping to have it ready and to begin indoctrinating the elves on how they need to behave to best serve and guide the humans in the next few days.” A glint appeared in his dark eyes. “It will take tens of thousands of years according to the project plan and milestones I’ve put together. We’ll send one elf home to Hel with a copy. Hopefully that will delay their coming and give us enough time to finish preparation. If we’re lucky it will dissuade some of them and we’ll only have to deal with part of the elven population and not the whole lot of them.”
As much as I hated having them here and the inevitable elven takeover, it was a good idea. Chances are most of the elves would stay in Hel just to see how things were going on the island before they committed to further immigration. With any luck, the ones on the island would give up and beg to be sent home. Now that would be an amazing stroke of luck.
“Do you think that will help things in Aaru?”
“Hopefully. We have an emergency Ruling Council meeting tomorrow about the treaty.
I grimaced at the thought of a Ruling Council meeting tomorrow, just days after the last disastrous one. I didn’t want to attend, especially because it would most likely be in Aaru. Actually I probably wouldn’t be allowed to attend, which bothered me more. If there was another attack, another fight, I wanted to be there to help.
“Am I to be there? Have I been unseated yet? Do I even have a say in any of this anymore?”
His jaw set in a firm line. “You will be there. I don’t care if I have to wrap my wings around you and slaughter every angel who so much as looks your way, you’ll be there. You’re the Iblis, the Adversary. It’s your job, and it’s part of the treaty. Until we’re kicked out and the treaty torn to bits, you have a right to be in Aaru.”
Although the idea of him shielding me with his wings as he slaughtered angels was very appealing, the rest of his speech wasn’t. It would probably be better—for him and for his cause—if I remained here. But I couldn’t stay away. It was bad enough that I was chasing elves all over the place when he was fighting, when he could become injured, when he could be killed. No, I needed to be by his side.
Gregory transported me to Iowa, giving me a break. I hadn’t teleported this much since our little game to help me navigate, and that was less taxing since it was just me. All this made me realize how much effort it took the angels to create the gateways to Hel, and how much it took out of Gregory every six months when he needed to haul a huge dragon around.
The farmer was still in his field, this time standing beside a large piece of equipment. We approached and this time I didn’t get shot. No doubt it was due to Gregory’s six cream-colored wings, glistening in the sun as we strode through the soybeans.
Gregory paused to look down at the dead elves, shaking his head. “If this is what buckshot does to them, then I have grave concerns about their ability to survive here, let alone lead the humans.”
Me too. I grunted in agreement and we continued on, stopping in front of the farmer, who stared at Gregory wide-eyed. Well, stared at his wings wide-eyed.
“Can you tell me what happened here with your farming equipment and fields?” Gregory’s dulcet tones got a much better response from the farmer than mine had. And yes, I’d used the most dulcet tones I could possibly produce. Actually I’d demanded “What the fuck happened here?” And then I’d gotten filled full of buckshot.
Normally I wouldn’t have called Gregory in for such a thing. He was busy, but mainly I didn’t want to call him because of his smug, pompous attitude every time I needed his help in gaining human cooperation. He’d be full of himself for days. I’d hear nonstop lectures about my vibration patterns and how to best interact with emerging species.
Yeah, I hadn’t wanted to call him, but the paramedics had scraped the other four elves off the interstate pavement. Who knew how many more elves would be flattened on roadways by nightfall? I looked at the farmer, at the shotgun held loosely in his hands, at the big black burns on the giant piece of farm equipment behind him. Judging from the condition of this farmer’s combine, I was betting my last dollar he’d seen more than just these two dead ones.
The farmer shifted his weight, casting a quick glance down at the two elven corpses. “Welp, these kids from the Renaissance Fair came out of nowhere, trampling my soy and singing some weird song. Drunk, I tell you. They were drunk out of their minds.”
Gregory nodded sympathetically and spread his wings—all six of them. The ivory and gray feathers glistened in the sunlight. Showoff. I was tempted to reveal my wings, too, but was worried the farmer would just shoot me again.
“I told them to get out of here, but they just stared at me.” The man turned his head and discretely spit sunflower seed shells onto the ground. “Then they started screaming something and pointing at my combine. I was afraid I was going to run one of them over, so I stopped it and climbed out. Good thing I did because then they started throwing stuff at it.”
The man gestured behind him at the harvesting equipment. It was then I noticed more than the black burn marks. Arrows protruded from the thick tires, and lay broken on the ground. The scorch marks dotted the combine as well as quite a few dents.
“Molotov cocktails or something,” the man explained. “I understand rocks and arrows from a bunch of drunk Renaissance Fair partiers, but what kind of person dresses up to watch jousting and eat turkey legs, and carries explosives with them? That’s just downright disrespectful.”
“Did you contact the authorities?” Gregory asked.
The man scowled. “Nah. I shot them.”
Of course he did. Gregory was an angel, and thus was a creature of rules as well as one who enforced a chain of command. Angels would have called the authorities. Demons would have unloaded a shotgun. In this respect, humans were a lot like demons.
Luckily Gregory was an angel who was fully aware of his own as well as others’ propensity to sin. I’m proud to say that in the last few years, he’d begun to embrace sin. Which meant he’d begun to embrace me. And do other, far more sinful things with me. It was good for him. Made him a better person…or angel.
“This combine cost me one hundred thousand dollars.” The farmer waved at it again. “I’m not gonna stand by and watch a bunch of freaks in tight-pants and elf ears burn it while I wait forty minutes for the sheriff to get out here.”
“You shot the elves.” The idea kind of thrilled me. Having been on the recipient end of this guy’s shot gun, I could only imagine how the elves had felt. “What happened next?”
The farmer gave me a suspicious look then addressed his answer to Gregory. “They screamed and ran around, rolling on the ground like I’d set them on fire or something. Not like I’ve got more than bird shot in my gun. At the distance they were, it shouldn’t have done more than stung.”
“You always carry a shotgun when harvesting soy?” I asked.
He glared at me. “Yeah. Usually it’s loaded with double-zero buckshot to take out the groundhogs digging up my fields. I’d planned on a bit of dove hunting tonight, so I had birdshot with me instead.”
“So they rolled around, then ran away?” Gregory asked, turning the man’s attention back to him.
“Yeah, except for the two who dropped dead.” He twisted his shirt, brow furrowed as he shot a quick glance at Gregory. “Am I going to hell for that? I mean, how was I supposed to know that birdshot would kill them? Normally it just stings and works its way out of your skin in a few days. Never killed anybody that I’ve heard of. Can I repent? Donate to the Renaissance Fair? I really don’t want to go to hell.”