by S. J. Day
“If you say that I took part in the hunt, it will lower my status. I am above such games.”
“Are you?” Reclining more fully on the divan, Sammael watched the revelers through the filmy sheers that surrounded his pallet. Between his spread legs, a succubus worked, her mouth gliding up and down the length of his cock with laudable skill. “How odd. I thought your place was where I put you.”
His lieutenant bowed. “I meant no offense, my liege. I simply point out that my ability to perform the tasks you set for me is enhanced when others fear me. That fear is more easily invoked when I am seen as separate from the masses.”
Sammael hissed in pleasure at the fervent tongue stroking the underside of his cock. “Worry not, Azazel. I told Evangeline that I would think of something. I did not say I would use her suggestion.”
“Thank you.”
Sammael turned his gaze back to his subjects who danced and fucked with abandon just beyond the edge of the divan. Unfortunately, his lieutenant’s continued agitation affected his enjoyment of the debauchery. “You still have questions.”
“Just one.”
“Well, spit it out. I resent how readily everyone believes in a divine plan, yet I am always questioned.”
“You’ve given a convenience to someone who is a pawn of our enemies. I just want to understand why.”
“Convenience,” Sammael repeated slowly. “Yes. I suppose the amulet is convenient. It certainly evens the odds between a powerless Mark and a gifted demon.”
“Yes. You could have ended the bounty without making things easy for her.”
Lifting his hand in a delaying gesture to his lieutenant, Sammael rolled his hips, screwing into the eager mouth that serviced him. Taking his cue, the succubus increased the pressure and tempo of her suckling. He came with a low groan, shuddering with the welcome release of tension.
“Excellent.” He pushed his fingers into the demon’s hair and yanked her head back. She stared up at him with heavy-lidded, worshipful eyes. The Asian glamour she wore had been her idea, but he’d taken a perverse enjoyment in it after meeting Cain’s woman.
“Azazel is too grim.”, he murmured, caressing her cheek. “Help him relax.”
“With honor, my liege.” She crawled over on her hands and knees, the awkward movement made sensual by the leisure with which she crossed the distance.
“I’m not grim,” Azazel protested. “Just curious.”
Sammael yawned, dangerously bored and only slightly mellowed by his recent orgasm. “Convenience works both ways.”, he said. “Now loosen up. The priest is our next entertainment, and I want you to enjoy the show.”
***
Eve pushed aside her doubts and trusted her instincts. “I don’t believe Cain has anything to do with this. He’s not well, but he isn’t a portal to a Hell-layer either. He’s got too much good inside him.”
“He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him,” Hank argued. “How can we rule anything out?”
“He understands enough to push me away”
Her head turned to look into the darkened depths of the room. Compared to the racket the tengu had been making before, it was now eerily silent. “I was too hurt to see it at first, but he’s trying to protect me from himself. He proved he still cares last night when he showed up at the stadium. The Cain we know is still in there somewhere. He’s not completely possessed.”
She looked back at Hank. “He would need to be possessed, right?”
“So I assume, but Cain is a loose cannon right now. There’s never been anything like him. We’re all learning as we go when it comes to him.”
As Eve considered the best way to handle the situation, long moments passed. Her fingers drummed atop the wooden table and her lips pursed. Alec hadn’t come to her for help and clearly didn’t want it, but she wouldn’t let that hold her back. If he came apart at the seams, it would be bad for everyone. Especially for him. She had no doubt the other archangels would kill him.
“Hey.” She perked up. “You said he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He came to see you, didn’t he? He wanted your help.”
“Everyone comes to me for help.” He shrugged. “I don’t always have the answers, but I appreciate being kept in the loop.”
“What answers was he looking for today?”
“Actually, I called him down here to talk about your tengu friend. But we also talked about his unsuitability for the position of archangel.”
Eve frowned. “Unsuitability? I think he’s perfect for the job. He always takes command of the situations he walks into and he knows this job better than anyone.”
His mouth curved. “Cain is a hands-on sort of Mark. He’s best in the trenches. There are others who would have been better suited to give interviews to the press and sit in an office.”
“Maybe that’s his problem.”, she suggested. “Maybe he just can’t handle all the periphery stuff. Just listening to the amount of information flowing through Abel’s brain makes my head hurt. It’s like standing at the base of Niagara Falls. I can’t bear more than a few seconds of it. And Cain skipped right over that section of the information superhighway and jumped headfirst into the part where he’s getting a gazillion times more info than that. That could drive a person crazy.”
“I suppose. Although I’ve met other archangels who’ve disliked it and they didn’t fall off the deep end.”
Eve thought of the archangels—Sarakiel, Raguel, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and Remiel. They’d all seemed very comfortable with their jobs. “Which ones? How did they get over it?”
“Chamuel had a hell of a time. I don’t think he ever got over it. There were others, but their names escape me now.”
Leaning over the table, she asked urgently, “There were more than the seven I’ve met? Abel has a theory about a possible cap on their number. If he’s right, we need to know what happened to the others.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Hank’s voice remained raspy and steady. “All I know is that shortly after the firms were created the number of archangels rapidly diminished until only seven remained.”
“Why? We need to— Ow!” Eve caught her head in hands. “Shit. . . migraine.”
But she didn’t get migraines. Hank stood and came up behind her, touching her shoulders. As the pain bore deep, she curled over the table. Then, as suddenly as it had struck, it disappeared. Leaving behind Alec, who was searching through her brain like a spreading flame, licking along the surfaces of her memories.
Alec.
Where have you been?
He sounded just as angry as he’d been before. It had to be exhausting, carrying around all that fury.
Searching for you, she gasped, still reeling from the force of his entry.
Don’t. Not safe.
Let me help you!
He began to withdraw in a rush. Eve caught him with both hands, but it was hopeless. He moved too quickly, like smoke sucked out by a vacuum. In an instant, he was gone.
Eve bolted upright. The back of her head cracked into Hank’s chin. He cursed and stumbled back.
“Sorry’ she cried, jumping to her feet so quickly the chair fell back and hit the floor. “Jeez, Hank. I’m sorry!”
“Bloody H. Christ!” he snapped, holding his chin. “Don’t apologize to me. Are you all right?”
She almost ran a hand over her face, then remembered that she was wearing makeup. “It was Alec— Cain—digging around in my brain.”
“He hurt you?”
Hank’s tone alarmed her, so she quickly explained. “He was trying to share information. The other archangels believe that Raguel is dead, but Cain doesn’t. He thinks Raguel is alive and that’s why he’s so messed up. He believes that the number seven is an absolute when it comes to archangels.”
“You were in great pain,” he insisted, releasing his chin to grip hers. He turned her head from side to side. He snapped his fingers and a handkerchief appeared. He pressed it to her right nostri
l. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“It was like he had to punch his way in,” she mumbled through the cloth.
“He’s your firm leader. He shouldn’t have to ‘punch his way in’ to you. . . Ah!” A look of discovery crossed over his face.
“What?”
“Try reaching him again.” Hank rushed into the darkness. He shouted over his shoulder as he retreated. “See if you can make contact.”,
Eve reached out to Alec. Against her nose, the cloth grew warm with blood. She found him, swirling like a hurricane, furious and destructive.
She reached out to his humanity. I have so much I want to tell you. I want to.. . lean on you.
The cyclone slowed marginally, then swayed. Alec didn’t say a word, but she could feel him softening.
You owe me, she prodded, after the shitty way you treated me yesterday.
I did you a favor
She snorted. Bite me.
Watch out. His voice changed, taking on a singsong note of madness that gave her chills. 1 just might.
“Here.”, Hank appeared out of nowhere, tossing the necklace at her. It whipped through the air and she ducked, avoiding a lash to the face. But when it neared her, it opened, lassoing her neck in a way that would be impossible without some preternatural means.
And like a dropped cell phone signal, her line to Alec died abruptly.
She blinked at Hank. The mark had done its job and healed the injury to her nose, but the deeper ramifications lingered.
Dropping the hand holding the handkerchief, she asked, “What happened?”
The occultist crossed his arms and looked thoughtful. “That piece of jewelery appears to put a damper on an Infernal’s powers.”
“I thought it only worked on the Nix.”
He shrugged. In the back of the room, the tengu began to screech and bang against something metallic. A cage perhaps.
“Why would a charm against Infernals work against Cain?”
“We’re circling back to my theory now, aren’t we?”
“But I don’t—”
The tengu continued its tirade.
“Can you shut that thing up?” she yelled. Bending down, Eve righted the fallen chair.
Hank nodded and gestured for her to follow. The spot of illumination followed them, a trick she wished she knew how to pull off herself.
As she’d suspected, the tengu was caged in what looked to be a large dog kennel. He clung from the top with fingers and toes, shaking and shouting violently.
Fred stood nearby, taking notes on a clipboard. She glanced up at Hank and nodded at whatever cue he’d given her. Turning, she set the clipboard on a lab counter, then grabbed a canister that had a nozzle like a fire extinguisher. She aimed it at the tengu and sprayed a reddish cloud of fine mist at him. He sputtered and coughed, causing him to lose his grip and crash to the bottom. He lay there for a spell, shaking his head and appearing nearly as dazed as he had while wearing the necklace. The red liquid was quickly absorbed into his cement shell, leaving him looking the same as always. Hank spoke a lyrical incantation, and the tengu sat up and looked at Eve.
“Pretty Mark,” he said, hopping to his feet.
“You’re a noisy fellow,” she replied.
He moved his gaze to glare at Hank. “Traitor.”
Eve leaned toward the occultist and whispered, “What was in the can?”
“Infernal blood.”
She almost asked where he got it, but decided she didn’t want to know. “Demons find demon blood soothing? We could win the war with that. Kill some, spray the others.”
“It wouldn’t have any effect on a healthy Infernal. In this case, it’s just canceling out the overdose of Mark blood I gave him earlier. I doubt you want to try your scenario with Mark blood.”
“Right?’ Moving closer to the cage, Eve studied the little stone beast. “That was a very ferocious reaction this guy had.”
“Oil and water,” Fred said. “Infernal and Mark don’t mix.”
“No kidding.”
“About the Nix.” Hank walked over to the counter where Fred had set down the clipboard.
“Yes?”
“I dug out that punch bowl you brought me before. I know Cain wanted me to scry for the Nix through any residuals that might be on it, but I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”
“Oh.” Her nose wrinkled. “Would have made things easier, but since he’s after me, we’ll see him again regardless.”
Thanks to the necklace, the Nix was the least of her problems at the moment. She pushed thoughts of him aside for more pressing problems.
“Right, but using a combination of bits and pieces of the mask, I was thinking I could create a repellent of some sort.”
Her brows rose. “Unless it’s a permanent repellant, I think I’d rather just kill the sucker and be done with it.”
“Well, I didn’t know about the necklace at the time.” Hank leaned into the counter with one hand and set the other on his hip. It was a very feminine pose and made her smile. “Now that I do, I’m thinking I might be able to tweak it in the reverse.”
“Reverse?”
“Make you more attractive. Irresistible.”
“She doesn’t need any help being irresistible.”
Alec’s low, deep voice hit her ears just before she registered the sound of his boots thudding rhythmically onto the cement floor. He appeared out of the darkness, wild-eyed and dangerous, the veins in his forearms and biceps thick and visible. She might have swooned if she was the type and Unmarked. As it was, she licked her lips. She’d always had a thing for his bad boy vibe, but this… yowza.
“You resisted me well enough earlier,” she managed.
He kept on coming, a raging force of nature that pinned her against the cage holding the tengu.
His hand caught the back of her neck. “Don’t you ever hang up on me.”
Her shoulders went back. “What are you going to do about it if I do?”
As she’d thought he might, he yanked her closer and kissed her, his lips mashing hers without any semblance of finesse.
His hand at her nape moved, sliding around in a quest for her breast, focused solely on his animal urges despite their audience. Reaching up, she caught the necklace chain. She pulled it up and over her head, then dropped it around his neck.
Alec froze. There was an awkward moment when they stood like statues with their lips pressed together.
What the hell?
Eve pushed him back and moved away from the cage where the mischievous tengu had been poking her in the butt with his stubby fingers. She studied Alec, noting the drastic change in his eyes and stance.
Sucking in a deep breath, she greeted the Alec she knew. “Hi.”
He frowned at her.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
Hank sidled closer. “Yes. How do you feel, Cain?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to feel?” he barked, but it lacked bite. He scrubbed both hands over his face, as he did when first waking up in the morning.
“Not angry?” Eve suggested. “In control?”
Alec lifted the amulet and stared at it. “What is this?”
“A lucky charm.”
“Lucky for whom?” His gaze lifted and met hers. A pained look crossed his face. Guilt settled like a heavy stone in her gut. Not hers. His.
“Lucky for us,” she said. They’d deal with guilt later. “We need you on top of your game now. If decking you out in a pimp chain does the trick, I’m all for it.”
“Where did you get this?”
“I tossed it to her,” Hank improvised. “It’s something I’m working on.”
Eve shot him a grateful glance.
“Whatever it is,” Alec said, “it’s perfect. Glad something is working out for us in the experimental department.”
His head tilted to the side as if hearing something she couldn’t, then, “Montevista woke up. I need to talk to him.”
Hoping the guard would be a
ble to tell Alec what she couldn’t, Eve said, “Go check it out.”
“You’re coming with me.” He gave her a stern look. “I need to talk to you, too. Best to get you, Sydney, and Montevista together, and see if we can figure out what happened last night.”
“I still have some business with Hank’ she protested. He looked at the occultist.
“He’s not making you anything to attract the Nix. That’s an order.”
Hank lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I have no idea if I can pull it off, but if I could, it can help you set the time and place of the showdown to your liking.”
“That could come in handy,” Eve pointed out.
“Like you don’t have enough Infernal trouble with the bounty?” Alec scoffed, tugging her toward the door.
She waved bye to Hank before they moved too far away and he was lost in the darkness.
If I could get Gadara back, she wondered, what would happen to Alec?
She’d like to ask whoever endorsed Alec’s promotion, but that could run the risk of them killing him. If Alec was the emissary, they wouldn’t hesitate.
He’s not the emissary, she scolded herself. Besides, she didn’t have a clue about who was responsible.
A sudden image of eyes the color of blue flame filled her mind. She almost set the thought aside, telling herself that of course she would think of him. He was the only seraph she’d ever met.
Then, she realized the thought came from Reed.
***
Chaney slumped back into the plastic chair, clearly taken aback. “I knew you hated your brother, but this. . . Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?”
“Actually,” Reed picked up his beer, “I’m sanctioned.”
“Someone gave you the authority to get rid of Cain?” Asmodeus was clearly disbelieving.
Reed considered how much to reveal. “Something went wrong with the ascension. He’s a danger to himself and to others.”
“We could use a man like him.”
“He’ll be fatally wounded by the absence of God in his soul, I suspect. Worthless to everyone.”
Reed looked at the increasing number of tourists as the amount of Infernals grew in proportion. Casting a glance into the dark interior of the restaurant, he regretted his decision to sit outside. The same exposure that gave him a modicum of safety around Asmodeus also bared him to any of the dozens of Marks policing the overabundance of demons in the area. They were too visible out here.
