“Where might he be?” Ryuu asked, forgetting all about the shattered kiss now that danger had once again lifted her ugly head.
I stared down at the ground. “I do not know. He’s just gone. Maybe he’s in Fae. Or Asgard. Or Niflheim.” It was possible that the fact he was in another realm was preventing me from sensing him. Or it could be a justification I was using to lie to myself. My instincts screamed something was off. “He hops realms all the time, but this feels different,” I finally said, unable to lie to him with throwaway answers. Because…I was scared to discover the truth. What if something had happened to him? I’d been so concerned about my love life, angels, and demons that I hadn’t paused to think about the very real dangers he faced back in St. Louis—ones that had the potential to spill over into Kansas City or affect all of us in the Omega War that we would all supposedly protect humanity from.
Which had probably been Aphrodite’s freaking point.
“What can I do?” Ryuu asked in a foreboding tone.
I shrugged, frustrated. “Nate never tells me anything. Never lets me in. How am I supposed to help my friend if he keeps me in the dark?” I whispered angrily, punching my fist into my thigh.
Ryuu stared at me intently, catching onto the term I had used. Friend. I’d called Nate friend. He didn’t gloat, but…
Ninjas were masters at concealing their true movements, so I knew there was a small but powerful flicker of excitement at my words. But danger was on the table, so that would have to wait. Goddamned chivalry. Goddamned responsibility. Goddamned Olympians.
Goddamned ninjas and Anghellians and Carnage.
“Well, I can’t do anything about Nate right now, but I intend to visit my ancestor, Solomon. He and Last Breath have billions of books in the temple libraries. If anyone has answers about Anghellians, Divines, the Sins or even the Omega War, it would be them.”
He nodded. “Then let’s go—” He cut off abruptly, glaring past my shoulder at something behind me. “Legion is a dozen feet behind you.”
8
I spun with a growl, ready to throw down some serious magic. Legion worked for Wrath, and I needed the Sin to deal with his crazy sister, Lust, before she sent a dozen more possessed, violent victims after me in an effort to discern Wrath’s location.
A familiar older gentleman with a mustache and a bowler hat stood waiting for me, holding a briefcase with both hands in front of him, revealing that he held no weapons and obviously intended no harm. I lurched to my feet, hearing Ryuu do the same.
“Callie Penrose,” Legion said with forced cheer. “May we speak with you about a matter of some urgency?”
I narrowed my eyes, suspicious of his tone. I wasn’t going to confirm my identity, not with his penchant for legal contracts and that notoriously dangerous briefcase of his. “Who I am,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “depends on if you have a hella-legal summons in that briefcase. You’re not trying to serve Callie Penrose papers, are you, Legion? She and Wrath never even made it to the public courthouse, so a divorce settlement would not be necessary.”
He licked his lips with an uneasy smirk. “We fear Kansas City will be immolated in the next forty-eight hours unless we find Wrath as soon as possible. Pride as well. Some of the other Sins grow restless.”
I stared at him. “That was not a yes or no.” I had almost forgotten about his casual use of the plural when referring to himself. It kept me on my toes, paranoid of an ambush. Then again, Legion could multiply into countless clones of himself, so it wasn’t necessarily paranoia. It was common sense.
He let out a frustrated breath, puffing out his cheeks and making his mustache jiggle. “We are not serving you papers! Show some respect for the Apocalypse and listen to us, you vapid little child!” An insignia of a burning, shattered crucifix blazed to life on the front of his leather briefcase. That symbol and his downright frantic response stopped my breath, reminding me of the time I had spent in the Doors—the test of King Solomon to confirm my birthright.
The last step of my journey had been to jump through a stained-glass window of a white-haired girl and an older father figure. The pair had been holding hands, standing before a shattered, smoldering crucifix just like the one on Legion’s briefcase. The new Four Horsemen had occupied the corners of the stunning window—before I’d been offered the job of Horseman of Despair. I had referred to the white-haired girl as a vapid little child, but only Solomon and Last Breath had been present to hear me say it. To my understanding, the window had been a depiction of the end of the world, making me and Roland the central two figures holding hands. Yet I was also one of the Horsemen at the corners, which was oddly unsettling.
A depiction of the past—me as a child.
A depiction of the present—me staring at the massive window.
A depiction of the future—me as the Horseman of Despair to ride beside Nate Temple, the Horseman of Hope, in the upcoming Omega War. A war I had not yet known about.
Aphrodite’s earlier visit, and the warning she’d given me, hit me even harder after seeing Legion’s briefcase and hearing his declaration about my city possibly being destroyed in the next two days.
But Ryuu had rightly reminded me that we were not to talk about the Masters or the Omega War, especially not with potential enemies like Legion, a greater demon who worked as Wrath’s on-call lawyer and gopher. I needed to find out what he knew, but I needed to play this very carefully. I motioned for Legion to approach. “Swear that you do not wish me harm and you may come closer.”
He had lifted his foot to take a step but abruptly halted. He looked up, chewing over my words. “We would appreciate you using the proper pronouns. You all, will suffice.”
I stared at him for about three seconds, and then I burst out laughing at the insanity of it all. Even Hell was politically correct. Who knew? “Sure,” I said, smiling warmly because I could tell my laughter only emphasized my unintended slight. “Could y’all swear that y’all do not wish either of us harm, and then come on down yonder to this here Hillbilly feast,” I said, mocking my own Missouri roots in an effort to appease him. I gestured at the blanket and food. “Yeehaw.”
Legion cocked his head and took off his hat with a confused frown. “We represent many clients, so we may not speak on their behalf. Many of them, as you well know, wish you gratuitous eons of suffering and hopeless anguish,” he said, in a tone about as polite as I had ever heard. “Yeehaw,” he said, tasting the word for himself. “Do y’all swear the same? Not to harm us?”
“Amen to that, Legion!” I waved a hand, grinning at his honesty. “Swear for y’all selves and then mosey on down. A truce for the duration of y’alls visit plus one hour.”
For a morning so young, it was shaping up to be a real scorcher—in more ways than one.
Legion made the appropriate promise and then clicked the heels of his fancy dress shoes together before shuffling closer. He stopped a few feet away, eyed the blanket with haughty distaste, and chose to remain standing. Ryuu coughed into his fist, reminding me he was present.
Wow.
An agent of Hell had just picnic-shamed me. Silently informing me that my blanket wasn’t refined enough for his social circles—a man whose most notable circle was which level of Hell he called home. They must have a gated community with personal security, sulfur-picket fences around every decadent and meticulously hellscaped lawn, and private misery pools in every backyard.
Talk about a low blow. Straight from the seventh circle.
I let out a weary sigh, realizing that he truly did look terrified beneath his calm facade. It was in the subtleties: his eyes darted left and right at the slightest breeze or tumbling leaf in his peripheral vision; he was breathing shallow and fast; and his lips were pursed and pale. If he had been playing poker, I would have called his bluff. The question was what, exactly, he was bluffing about. Was he scared for Wrath’s fate or was he attempting to set me up? The Archdemons didn’t care about the fate of Kansas City. Hell, they�
��d fully hoped for it to burn, so his threat about immolation wasn’t as shocking as the first time I’d heard it. That’s why the Seven Sins had stopped by this urban stretch of Route 666 on their Summer of Love road trip in the first place. Well, that, and for Wrath to surprise marry me, apparently.
“Okay. What’s got Legion looking constipated?” I asked, keeping my features blank.
He shifted from foot to foot, ever so slightly, before beginning. “We cannot find Lord Wrath or Lord Pride. Both were last seen in your presence. Pride outside his hideout where you killed a dozen Nephilim, and Wrath at Castle Dracula for a dinner with your…godparents,” he said, looking as if he wanted to vomit at the term, “Samael and Lilith—”
“Which Legion knows because Envy was spying on me,” I said, not wanting to keep saying y’all in case it got stuck in my verbal repertoire for the next week or so. Southern drawl was as sticky to the tongue as molasses.
Legion flinched, almost dropping his bowler hat. He managed to keep hold of it, grimacing nervously as his eyes flicked left and right again, looking fearful of the very real danger of Envy popping up behind him to impale him in the digestive off-ramp with a red pitchfork. If demons did have sphincters, his was all sphunct’d up. He gave me the faintest of nods in response to my accusation, licking his lips nervously. “We must find Lord Wrath. We fear for his safety,” he rasped. “We are his and we don’t know what to do without him. Our ability to replicate is weakening. We cannot multiply as fruitfully as yesterday.”
His eyes bore into mine with an almost accusatory gleam. I blinked. Legion couldn’t duplicate himself? “Wait. Do you think I killed him?” I asked, incredulously. “Is that why Lust paid me a visit and all but threatened to disembowel me if I didn’t hand over her brothers?” Legion’s eyes bulged at the mention of Lust visiting me and I saw beads of sweat pop out on his temples. “I didn’t but not for a lack of trying. I’d be carrying his head around on a pike for all to see if I’d managed to pull that one off. Hell, I’d be on a beach, soaking up the sun, lugging his corpse around like Weekend at Bernie’s.”
Legion didn’t blink, seeming to assess me for deceit. Finally, he took stock of Ryuu, only to find the ninja shrugging and nodding. “I would advise against vacationing with a corpse, but he was alive the last we saw him,” the ninja said, and I knew he was choosing his words very carefully. Because Legion was incorrect on one fact. We had seen both Pride and Wrath at Xuanwu’s estate when we had opened a portal to the Neverwas—or Purgatory, as his breed called it.
If Legion didn’t know about that, Wrath hadn’t told anyone about me turning Pride and Michael into an Anghellian. Or the fact that Wrath had been working with Archangel Gabriel, his sworn nemesis. Wrath was keeping secrets from his own demon servant. I could guess at why he hadn’t shared his rekindled friendship with his brother, Gabriel, but why not throw some shade at Pride instead? It would have been the perfect cover for his own crimes.
Awful pun, but where the hell was Wrath?
“Where are the other Sins? Have you guys checked with them?” I asked, my mind working at about a million miles an hour, considering a dozen different factors. Legion was not a good liar and he was ignorant and needy—the perfect mark for a con artist. I could use that.
Legion shrugged, dejectedly. “We have not. We fear them without the protections of our Master.”
An idea began to formulate in my mind, and I began talking before I’d reached a solid conclusion. “Wrath fled when I turned him down at our dinner. We argued, obviously, but he walked out on his own two feet, not happy with my reaction to his proposal. He said he was going to rally the other Sins for an emergency meeting now that our wedding was off the table.” I chose my words very carefully, speaking them off-handedly as I made sure my body language was equally disinterested and dismissive. Not my demon, not my problem. I needed to come across as genuine and uncaring, giving him a sliver of a hope that he might be able to intercept his boss at this fictional meeting.
He needed to believe that I had way more important things to worry about than Wrath’s current location.
Legion frowned, giving me a doubtful look. “Lord Wrath despises his brothers and sisters. He would never call such a bizarre formal meeting.”
I shrugged, leaning back on my elbows. “I said as much myself, mocking him for his idea.”
Ryuu cleared his throat. “You said, and I quote, if you want to pout and cry to your dysfunctional family about a woman rejecting you, it only reaffirms my decision. Go to hell, Wrath.” His words hit Legion like a kick to the nuts, and I realized I was chuckling in surprise at Ryuu’s improv skills. I hadn’t intended him to back up my lie, let alone expected him to pour extra salt on Legion’s pride in the process.
Legion opened his mouth, wordlessly, obviously wanting to smite Ryuu for the ninja’s Hellish equivalent of blaspheming. Sinspheming? Demonizing? Whatever.
9
I waved a hand absently. “After the Pride situation with the Nephilim, Wrath kind of went crazy. Maybe he was even jealous that I visited Pride. If you guys recall, that was part of my agreement—to meet each and every Sin before considering his betrothal. Maybe he thought he could convince them to play nice with me when I came calling. He didn’t have a reason to be jealous, though, because I haven’t seen Pride since the multiple homicide of the Nephilim. Even Michael, who takes particular pleasure in pointing out my flaws, hasn’t popped up to remind me how sinful I am.” I shrugged. “Maybe he forgot to tell you guys about the meeting?”
Legion shook his head firmly, looking lost deep in his own thoughts. “I will continue searching. My main concern is what the rest of the Seven Sins will do in his absence. You said Lust visited you?”
I nodded. “Via a possessed woman less than an hour ago. Here, actually.”
I knew I would garner no friends from Heaven by being too loose-lipped or helpful to Legion, so this was the best I could do. Because Legion had seemed to entirely forget that I had a clan of ninjas at my disposal, and they were known for being particularly sneaky.
Legion stared at me, looking miserable. “We don’t know what to do,” he said with sad, puppy-demon eyes.
I let out a breath, muttering unhappily. “How about this. I promise to let you guys know if I run into him, but only if you guys promise to give me a heads up if he’s heading my way. Deal?”
He nodded adamantly, fumbling with the buckles on his briefcase in his abundance of excitement. “Let us just draw up a contract—”
“No. This is a personal pact between you guys and me. More binding than any contract. Ryuu is my witness.”
Legion cocked his head, lowering his briefcase with a thoughtful look. “How archaic…” he mused. He glanced about the park, frowning. “We must sacrifice an innocent woodland creature and paint the Bindings of Damnation on each other’s faces. Which creature would you prefer? The younger the better. Innocent blood is the equivalent of your upcoming improved mobile network when it comes to sacrificial communications. Superior service even in the most abysmal of locations.”
Ryuu stared at him flatly and I had to forcefully click my jaw closed. “How about a simple handshake, psychopath? We can spit on our palms first, if you guys want to make a big ceremony out of it.”
Legion frowned, looking disappointed. “That’s not very dignified,” he complained with a pompous air. He lifted a finger to reveal a shining black claw. “Maybe just a little prick to seal the deal?”
“Legion?” I asked in a calm, serious tone. He looked up at me, eyes hopeful. “A little prick never seals the deal, no matter what you guys were told.”
Ryuu coughed violently into his elbow, trying not to stare directly at Legion.
Legion narrowed his eyes at the ninja, realizing he was the brunt of another joke. He stomped his way up to me and spit in his palm. “Fine. We swear to give you fair warning if Lord Wrath intends to visit you…in exchange for you alerting us to his whereabouts the moment you locate him.”
> I spit in my palm and shook hands, staring him in the eyes as we connected. I felt a faint pulse of heat and a whiff of sulfur in the air, which was less than appealing. I noticed something hovering above his head and reflexively swiped my other hand at it, believing it to be a mosquito.
Legion hissed and leapt away from me, putting at least six feet and his briefcase between us. “How dare you?!” he snarled, indignantly. I stared back at him, baffled.
Ryuu had leapt to his feet and drawn his black blade, keeping the both of us in his peripheral as he occupied the space between us. “Easy now,” he urged in a calming tone. “Easy. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?” Legion sputtered, practically quivering with outrage. “She tried to touch our private parts!”
I scratched at my ear, fighting a smile. “I swatted at a fly. Unless you guys are admitting that you guys really are a collective of dickheads, I didn’t go near any private parts.”
Legion scowled at me before shifting his glare to Ryuu. “She mocks me. You saw!”
Ryuu nodded in commiseration. “I can assure you, it was an honest mistake. She did not intend to touch your halo.”
“OUR HALO!” he shrieked, infuriated at the whole pronoun thing on top of my unintentional molesting.
The hair on the back of my neck practically jumped out of my skin. “Wait. WHAT?!” I demanded, competing with Legion for loudest crazy person.
Ryuu apologized and continued speaking with Legion, who now refused to acknowledge my existence. “May I have a piece of…Legion’s essence so that we can reach out to you guys when the time is right?” Ryuu asked the affronted demon, struggling to address him properly.
Legion nodded, tugging at a few strands of hair with more force than necessary. He handed it over to Ryuu and then held out his palm, expecting Ryuu to return the favor. Ryuu reached onto his shoulder and lifted a long strand of pale hair. I narrowed my eyes. Of course. From our wrestling. I must have shed a few hairs on him. Legion took it with a derisive sneer, mumbled something privately to Ryuu in the tone of a displeased butler, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Trinity: Feathers and Fire Book 9 Page 5