by Debra Dunbar
There were a collective inhalation, a sense of electricity as all eyes turned to me, their grotesque faces raised up to mine with…hope. No one had ever given a flying fuck about them before. No one.
Well, that needed to change. I was a stupid idiot for adding one more thing to my list—and an impossible one at that. There was no way I could safeguard all the Lows in Hel, not when for millions of years demons had been allowed to kill them, to do whatever they wanted to them, without any penalty. If I was going to do this, I needed to be able to enforce it. I needed to have the status and strength to rule. Every demon in Hel needed to know that what I said went, and they needed to fear for their lives if they crossed me.
I didn’t have that kind of power. I didn’t have that kind of mojo. All I had was some black feathered wings, an apparently bottomless energy storage capacity, the unsavory inclination to devour, and an unreliable ceremonial sword that could kill just about any demon in Hel if it bothered to show up and act as a lethal weapon instead of a petunia or hairbrush.
“I want to know if Lows are being killed. Any Lows. Because this bullshit needs to stop right now.”
I’d expected cheers, not this wide-eyed silence.
“Welp, it’s been nice knowing you, Mistress,” Snot told me. “Can I have your chicken wand when you die?”
Hopefully I wasn’t going to die. “No. Now everybody party. I’ve got a few things I need to do in Dis, and I want you all out and working on my extra-special top-secret project at first light tomorrow. Got it?”
That resulted in cheers. My Lows ran off to pull together food and drink as they loudly discussed which party games they should play. I think pin-the-durft-on-the-Low was getting top votes. It was a shame I was going to miss it because there were few things in life quite as amusing as one Low trying to impale a furry, ferocious durft onto the ass of another Low.
It sucked. Me and my big mouth. I was going to miss all the fun, as usual. With a reluctant glance at the bowls of beaks, beakers of blood-wine, and the durft someone had pulled from a cage, I turned to go and felt a tug on my arm.
“Mistress, I have someone I want you to meet.” Snip looked at me nervously, as if he wasn’t sure I was going to like this person-of-interest.
“Can it wait?” I really needed to get to Dis and put the stop on this poaching of my household members, meet with Criam, then go back to the other side of the gates.
“You said it was important, Mistress. I know you’re busy, but I think I found Samael.”
Chapter 8
Everything else slid to the bottom of my to-do list. I hadn’t had a lead on Gregory’s youngest brother since I’d sent my Lows to searching for him. Like Harkel and everyone else, I’d begun to think he was dead.
“Where is he?” If I could find Samael…all these visions of happy family reunions ran through my head.
“Outside.” Snip darted through the crowd of partying Lows and out the front door, while I followed at a slower pace, thinking how I should introduce myself to Gregory’s brother. Hi, I’ve got your Iblis sword and I’m banging your eldest brother, the one who nearly killed you and banished you. No, that wouldn’t work. Hi, I’m an imp and things have changed a lot in two-and-a-half-million years and I want to smooth things over between you and your brothers.
Ugh. I’d dreamed of this day, but now my hands were sweaty with worry that things weren’t going to go the way I’d been envisioning.
Just outside the front door, Snip stood with another Low. He was ugly. Well, both of them were ugly, but I’d gotten used to Snip’s kind of ugly. This guy had bulging eyes that looked like he was perpetually astonished. He was short, fat, balding with a comb-over of greasy brown hair, and was staring as he picked at his cuticles.
“This is Gimlet,” Snip announced.
Who the fuck was Gimlet? Was Snip introducing me to his date, a prospective household member, or a new playtoy? I was never really sure when it came to the Lows in my household. And where was Samael? I thought Snip had said he’d found the former Iblis and that he was outside my house.
“I know where he is,” Gimlet told me. “Well, maybe I know where he is. Sort of. Because I kinda maybe saw him once. Or twice. Maybe.”
I turned to Snip, because of all the Lows I’d met in my nine hundred some years, he was the most coherent.
“He says he knows that Samael Ancient you’re looking for,” Snip said. “And if Gimlet knows something, he knows something. He’s that kinda Low.”
So Samael wasn’t on my front porch, but I was one step from finding him. I jerked my face around to Gimlet so fast that I nearly gave myself whiplash. His bulbous eyes widened, and he took a precautionary step backward.
“You know him?” It was more a demand than a question. “The Samael? Not just some idiot who included that in one of his dozen names? He’s an Ancient. He led the war against Aaru two-and-a-half-million years ago. He used to carry the sword. This sword.”
I summoned it from the ether, and for once the damned thing appeared obediently, although it was a knitting needle instead of a sword this time—one of those big-ass knitting needles that can whip up a scarf in two seconds. If it hadn’t been aluminum, it could have doubled as a fencing foil.
Gimlet squealed and shielded his eyes. “Put it away! Put it away!”
I put it away. It wasn’t like I needed a knitting needle right now anyway.
“Yes!” the Low continued. “This guy is an Ancient. Samael. He’s a mighty and powerful being, the Ancient who lead the Angels of Chaos during the war. He can tell the good and bad deeds of every human in the world.”
That last part kinda made sense. I wouldn’t have expected that Gregory’s younger brother would be a lightweight. I’ll admit to being a bit jealous about the good and bad detection skill. It would make my job of ridding the world…I mean reforming humans with crappy credit scores a whole lot easier if I didn’t have to turn to Equifax fifty times a day. Sounded like the guy I was looking for, but all the Ancients were mighty and powerful beings, and there might be one or two that had these superskills.
“Are you sure? The Samael, not just some general or prince or something? He was the Iblis before me.”
Gimlet nodded enthusiastically. “That’s him. He has enslaved a group of elves to work night and day for him in a cold dungeon where they cannot escape. It’s always winter there, and the ones who try freeze to death.”
How the fuck had Samael gotten away with that? The elves would have gone on the warpath if there was a demon snatching them up and enslaving them. It’s not like that sort of activity could be done all sneaky-like. Elves were gonna notice if Uncle Hank went missing one day. That was pretty fucking impressive, but even more remarkable was the skill Samael must have in environmental manipulation to create an endless winter in the middle of Hel. Even up in the mountains there wasn’t more than a patch of snow here or there, and those spots were in Dwarven territories. Dwarves were not going to put up with an ancient demon running a sweatshop full of elves on top of one of their mountains. And I don’t care how powerful Samael was, he wouldn’t prevail against thousands of pissed-off dwarves.
“Are you sure?” I asked Gimlet. “How cold are we talking here? Subzero? Or like maybe fifty degrees with a brisk wind? And how many elves? Five? Two?”
“Hundreds. And the snow never melts, so it’s really cold.”
Huh. “So where is he? Can you lead me to him?”
“He’s very fat, but can shrink his belly to wedge himself into small spaces,” Gimlet told me. From the look of rapture on his face, I could tell I wasn’t going to get my questions answered until he finished his description.
“Eyes like glowing coals?” I asked. “Black feathery wings?” The fat thing kinda threw me. These archangels liked to manifest into a worshipfully beautiful physical form, but Samael was the contrary one. Could be that he decided to truly rebel and be a fat dude.
“No.” Gimlet scowled at me for interrupting his spiel. “In spit
e of his girth, he’s lively and quick. His eyes twinkle, and he has dimples.”
Weird. He actually sounded cute aside from the fat part. Maybe if I could get Samael to get on the treadmill a few times per week…
“His cheeks are like roses, and his nose is like a cherry, and his mouth turns up like a bow, and his beard is white as snow.”
Wait. What the fuck?
“He has a broad face and a round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly.”
“That’s fucking Santa Claus, you moron,” I shouted. I was going to kill this Low. And then I was going to kill Snip for bringing me this Low.
“That’s one of his many names.” Gimlet waved his hands in front of his face as if he were trying to conjure something. “Santa is an anagram for Satan, after all.”
“So I’m assuming you want to join my household?” Of course he did. That’s probably why he made up this crazy Samael-as-Santa scheme. Lows tended to gravitate toward my household, and with a kidnapper on the loose, this Gimlet probably wanted to be somewhere safe.
“No,” he scoffed. “I don’t need to be in anyone’s household. And I certainly don’t want to be in yours. An imp. Yuck. I’d rather jump into an active volcano.”
The little jerk didn’t have to disparage me like that, but his loss. I secretly hoped that this kidnapper took him next. But just in case there was a thread of truth in his improbable story…
“So where is this Santa Samael?”
“Told you. North. Where all the snow is, cracking a whip over those elves so they get all the toys made in time. Say what you will about the guy, Samael always keeps his word. If he vows to deliver toys on a certain day, it’s gonna happen.”
This was ridiculous. “Well, thank you very much, Gimlet. I’m sure I’ll see you around. Feel free to join in the festivities going on inside. Eat some roast beaks. Throw some poisoned darts at Poo-poo. Have a ball.”
He skipped inside eagerly. I grabbed Snip as he made to follow his friend. “Walk with me a bit, would you?”
He grinned and happily fell in beside me. “Did I do well, Mistress? You have been looking for this Samael for a long time. I’m glad I finally found him for you. I should have known to ask Gimlet, because he knows everyone and everything in Hel. Of course, sometimes he’s not easy to find. He told me that he fell into a hole one time and couldn’t get out for three months until someone came along with a rope. That’s a problem when you’re short. He had to eat a lot of worms to survive.”
“Snip, he’s an idiot. You can’t just bring me any random demon who claims to know Samael without doing a bit of checking first. I mean, Santa? Really?”
The Low shrugged. “Gimlet does lie a lot, but I got the feeling he really does know Samael. Why don’t you go see Santa just to be sure? You’d recognize this Samael if you saw him, right? I wouldn’t, so I figured you’d be wanting to check it out yourself.”
I opened my mouth to argue only to snap it shut again. Would I recognize Samael? I’d assumed he’d either be like the other Ancients, sort of decayed and rotted looking in his demon form with an oppressively huge energy signature, or he’d be a gorgeous hunk, just like the other archangels. Charming. Suave. A powerful demon whose very presence drew others irresistibly toward him. He’d be like the Pied Piper of demons. And his spirit-self would be horribly scarred from the battle with his eldest brother, but then again, who among us wasn’t horribly scarred? My spirit-self was a mess. Even Snip looked like he’d had a few trips through a chipper shredder.
“How about you tell Gimlet to convince Santa Samael to come visit me instead?” I compromised, unwilling to go haring all over Hel with an ugly, crazy Low looking for a fat guy in a red suit.
“Gimlet says he’s never where you expect him to be, but he’s always listening,” Snip replied. “So maybe you can just shout that you want him to come visit you?”
This was ridiculous. “Snip, who the fuck is this Gimlet? I’ve never seen him before, but you act like he’s some kind of Low celebrity.”
“Well, he kind of is. He’s very lucky, although not always lucky because he’s just as scarred as I am, so clearly he’s been a play toy for a lot of demons in his life. Sometimes he stays in the abandoned buildings in Dis with the other unaffiliated Lows, but he travels a lot.”
So, he was pretty much just like any other Low. “How old is he?” I asked, figuring that he probably grew up with Snip.
“Two.”
I waited, but Snip didn’t elaborate. “Two what? Years? Decades? Centuries?” He couldn’t be two thousand years old, because Lows didn’t usually live that long. Besides I couldn’t imagine Gimlet being older than me. Although if he was as lucky as Snip claimed, maybe he had managed to avoid death for that long.
“No idea. He always just says he’s two. He’s older than me, so maybe he means two thousand.”
“Or maybe he’s not very good at numbers,” I added drily.
“Could be. I think he can only count to two.”
Great. And this was my only lead on Samael. Well, an idiot Low who could only count to two and thought Santa Claus was a banished archangel was better than nothing. “Keep him around, will you? Bribe him with some beaks or the promise of a chicken wand or something. Just don’t let him slip away. I don’t want him to go a-traveling just in case the guy actually does know where Samael is and suddenly remembers in the next week or so.”
Snip saluted me and turned to jog back to my house, where I was sure he would keep a tight watch on my newest Low, the only one who didn’t seem to want to join my household. I watched him for a seconds, then teleported away.
To Dis. To see a couple of demons about my missing Lows then to see an Ancient about a plot to take Aaru.
Chapter 9
I made sure to stroll down the main street of Dis as I headed to my empty house, past the blocks that were lined with the homes of the Ancients. Past the more modest homes, and the run-down flop houses that the Lows tended to live in. Reaching the edge of town, I turned around and walked back down another street, through the merchant area, past Gareth’s shop with its layers upon layers of wards. I made sure everyone saw me with my big-ass wings out. I even summoned my sword and carried it prominently, whirling it around my head as if I were part of a high school color guard team.
I was trying to make a statement, a show of power, but from the attitudes of the demons who were watching me, I think the statement I was making was that I was a complete idiot, an imp who had gotten lucky, or unlucky depending on how one looked at it, and managed to attach herself to a powerful sentient object that no one else wanted.
I went through my home, quickly making sure that no one had robbed it while it had been left unattended, then I stood on the front porch where Lash had been taken and felt for the Low’s energy. It was faint, but still there. I quickly sorted out the traces of energy from the rest of my household and through the process of elimination, identified Oor’s and Cheros’s energy signatures. It wasn’t all that difficult. My household consisted almost entirely of Lows, so the two mid-level demons were easy to detect. It wouldn’t have been easier if they’d taken pictures of themselves and stapled them to the floorboards.
Flipping my sword around in a circle, I jumped off the porch and strode down the street toward Oor’s house. I figured I’d confront him first, since at least I knew where he lived. There were a few demons milling around outside, one of them burning holes into the bushes that dotted the sand-and-rock lawn.
“Hey,” I shouted. “Looking for Oor.”
It would have been more badass to just mow these demons down and plow through the front door like a steamroller, but I didn’t want to waste my energy fighting these guys if I didn’t have to.
“Fuck off,” the pyro shouted back.
Guess I was going to have to force my way in after all. I pushed open the gate with my sword, the electrical shock muted by my magical weapon to a merely unpleasant tingle. Then I walked up to the pyro and pun
ched him in the face.
The other demons hooted and lined up to watch. It was telling that none of them came to their buddy’s defense. Either they didn’t care if he got his ass kicked, or they didn’t think I was enough of a threat to actually be delivering an ass kicking.
The punch that he returned told me it was most likely the latter. I went back on my ass, the dust cloud from my fall extinguishing the sparks in my hair. Asshole had not only hit me, but set me on fire as well. I stood and swung my sword, not hesitating to use lethal force.
My sword had other ideas. Yes, it knocked the guy’s head to the side, cracking one of the six horns on his head. Yes, I saw a nice amount of blood coming from said horn and from his snout. No, it didn’t kill him, or even knock him out.
He recovered quickly and went to grab my sword, only to find his fingers passing right through the blade. I swung it again, and it became solid with just enough time to break that cracked horn right off the top of the guy’s head. He let out a howl and dropped to his knees, one hand coming up to feel the stump where the horn had once been. Taking advantage of his distress, I walloped him twice more with my sword. Then once more for good measure once he was facedown in the sand at my feet, not moving.
“Next!” I shouted.
One of the guys on the porch pointed to the door. “You made it past Chin, you can enter,” He laughed. “Oor is in the third room on the right. You a friend of his?”
“Not in this lifetime,” I replied, climbing the steps and pushing through the door.
The door made a loud creak noise, hanging crooked on its hinges as it swung open. The foyer area had a grayish rug with some questionable-looking stain on it. The stone walls were pockmarked and had lewd stick-figure drawings all over them. The doorway leading down the hall had clearly been regularly used for gnawing and sharpening tusks and claws. I felt something cold drip onto my head and looked up to see blobs of spit on the ceiling. This house was a dump. Still, it was better than Ahrimans’ had been when I’d acquired them. I’d yet to see any dead bodies or furniture made from bones and demon-skins.