The eyes of the older Mortus glinted with something like amusement. “If you had succeeded in killing this abomination, the king would have taken that as a questioning of his judgement. Your family would have paid the price, and you would have been killed or demoted from the harem. Would you prefer to be passed around the commoners’ ranks as nothing more than whores?”
“Aren’t we nothing more than whores anyway?” Milly asked, bitterness saturating her voice.
Peony lay still on the floor, hoping the three of them would forget she existed. This was awkward, and not just because Milly and Jewel had tried to murder her mere minutes ago.
The older woman stepped right up next to Peony like she wasn’t there, and gripped Milly by the jaw. “Don’t ever voice that sentiment again, girl, unless you want to die. I can protect you only so much.”
“Why bother at all?” Jewel muttered.
“Don’t make me question my choice. Go.”
A few seconds of tense silence, and then Milly and Jewel squeezed around the older demon and out the door. That left Peony alone with a woman who hadn’t hidden her disdain of her.
Eventually, the demon asked, “Why didn’t you kill them?”
“I don’t make a habit of killing people.”
The woman raised an auburn eyebrow. “Your sister does, from what I hear.”
“I am not Dru.”
The demon turned and walked to the door. “You might want to take a few lessons from her, if you wish to survive here.”
“I’m no killer.”
“Then you are a fool.”
The door shut behind her with a decisive click.
Better a fool than a murderer.
But why didn’t those words provide the comfort they once did?
Chapter 24
While Z wasn’t entirely convinced as to the Crone’s—Dora’s—sanity, she was efficient. Within moments of a second blood oath occurring, this one for the job itself, she had a bag set up on Raze’s desk, and had withdrawn numerous glass bottles and sachets from it. There were some strange-colored powders and liquids among them, the sulfur-yellow one looking especially ominous.
“What’s that?” Z asked, pointing.
Dora squinted at the bottle. It didn’t appear to have a label. Was he going to be poisoned by accident? “Powdered dragon urine.”
“Powdered what?”
The witch looked at him like he was dim-witted. “You never know when it will come in handy.”
“But what does it do?”
She shrugged. “Lots of things.”
“Dried dragon urine has been traditionally used by witches for the past two thousand years,” Raze said, as if he were reciting from a book. “Originally believed to help cure urinary tract infections, it has since been used for a range of ailments, and is thought to be especially good for treating burns.”
Dora glared. “Show off.”
The corner of Raze’s mouth quirked upward. “I did spend the first three hundred years of my life as a scholar.”
Maybe he doesn’t resent his punishment because he’s already had to give up one dream.
What if being a soldier had never been Raze’s dream?
No, that was silly. Who wouldn’t want to serve Heaven and its armies? It’s all Z had ever wanted, and only the best of the best had been assigned to the Darts. You couldn’t be as good as Raze at fighting if you didn’t love it.
“Now, I am going to make a poultice for your wings where they are still damaged. It will sting when I apply it.”
“So do you plan on putting other kinds of urine on me?” There were a few other alarmingly colored liquids and powders on the desk.
Dora barked a laugh. “Do you realize that sounds like an invitation?”
He frowned. “For what?”
Dora looked over his shoulder at Seraphina and then Raze. “If you don’t know, and those two aren’t saying, I am not going to be the one to explain it.”
The other angels kept quiet.
The witch turned away and began mixing ingredients, muttering under her breath the whole time. Z kept a careful eye on the proceedings, just to make sure the dragon pee stayed where it was.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked Seraphina quietly.
She nodded. “She is one of the most powerful witches in the country. Everywhere I asked, it was Theodora Broome that was recommended.”
Broome?
Isn’t that a bit cliched?
Then again, most human surnames found their origins in ancestral careers.
Dora turned, a greenish pile of goop in her left hand. “I am not one of the most powerful witches in the country.” She gave Seraphina a stern look. “I am the most powerful witch in all of the Americas.”
Truth.
And apparently her hearing was much better than her age would suggest.
“Can’t you just use magic, then?” Z asked her.
Dora hmphed and began slathering the mixture on the bones of his wings. “I could, but it would take a lot more power than necessary, and the spell would take longer to be effective. It would also drain you more, since I’d need to use your body’s own healing ability to do a lot of the work. Doing it this way, I can use the strong magic for the parts that need it.”
He wasn’t sure he agreed with her logic, but then he didn’t know much about human magic. “What’s the poultice do?” he asked.
“It will draw out any infection or poison. Now, I’m not here to conduct a lesson. Take your shirt off.”
Z paused for a moment, then pulled the black T-shirt over his head, careful not to disturb the poultice. He’d never worn clothing like it before, but it—and the trousers—had been donated by Azrael. Yael had said the other fallen angels’ clothing was too expensive to be cut up to allow for wing-slits.
Dora shook her head sadly. “What a waste.”
“What is?” he asked.
“The first time I lay eyes on a half-naked angel and his body is skin and bone. There goes that fantasy.”
Z preferred to not think about her statement in any great detail.
The Crone laid her hands on his shoulders, and warmth bloomed within him, racing through his veins. It wasn’t like the healing generated by Peony’s demon friend—this was purer, somehow, more like his own life-force.
How is she doing this?
“With skill and power,” Dora said, answering his thought. “Now stop thinking so hard, you’re distracting me.”
Alarm raced through him at the realization she could read his mind, and he felt more than heard her mirth.
“Your secrets are safe with me,” she said softly, “provided you don’t concentrate on them during the healing.”
Z took several deep breaths, using a meditation technique he’d been taught during his early years in warrior training. The goal wasn’t to think of nothing, but to find a peaceful part of his mind and focus on a single thought: a skill he wanted to learn, a book he’d been reading or, in this case, saving Peony.
“Better,” the witch mumbled.
The heat emanating from her hands ramped up, to the point where he began to sweat. Little zaps of lightning shot through his nervous system, distracting him from the meditation technique.
Dora removed her hands from his shoulders, and he turned to face her. Her wrinkled face was drawn slightly, and her breath wheezed. “I need more power.”
“We cannot transfer our magic to your kind—” Seraphina began.
“I don’t need your power.” She plucked a cell phone from her pocket and rapidly typed something into the screen. “I’ll just borrow some from my granddaughter.”
“You can do that?” Raze tilted his head to the side. His fingers fluttered, as if searching for a writing instrument to document the answer.
“With a conduit, yes. Not with just anyone. Rowan is one of the strongest born in three generations.”
There was pride in that sta
tement, and something else, something melancholy and perhaps a little bitter. But their family drama was not Z’s issue. He already felt stronger, although his head was pounding and he was thirsty, like he’d been walking in a desert for months without water.
“Can I have a drink?” he asked.
Dora stared at him for a few moments, her dark eyes serious. “Yes, a few sips. Water only.”
Seraphina poured a glass and handed it to him silently. He took three mouthfuls then passed it back, Dora’s eyes tracking his every movement to ensure that he had obeyed her instructions. He wasn’t sure what a little bit of extra water would do to the spell casting, but he didn’t understand human magic, so he wasn’t about to mess with her request.
The Crone’s phone chimed, the sound like a shop’s bell.
Then her hands were back on his shoulders, and the rush of power hit him, hard. The steady warmth was now a stream of lava, and his head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. A strange burning sensation started in his gut, then spread throughout his body. The electrical zaps had transformed into a maelstrom of lightning, but he didn’t utter a sound.
The others would stop Dora if they thought he was in pain.
The healing seemed to go on forever, but it may have just been moments. Finally, Dora’s hands left his shoulders, and he doubled over, breathing heavily, sweat slicking his skin. The lingering ache made him long for Peony’s treatments—and he’d thought her attentions were painful.
Dora thumped down into a chair next to him. Flicking a glance her way, Z took in her pinched features and weary expression.
“A week,” she croaked.
Seraphina quickly handed the Crone a glass of water. Dora gulped the liquid, then held the glass up and wiggled it in the air. “More, please.”
The angel obeyed and Dora drained the second glassful.
“What about a week?” Raze asked eventually.
“I give it a week and he will return to full health.”
A week.
It was almost too much to believe.
The door to the library was thrown open then, and Yael stood on the threshold, one hand gripped around the upper arm of the red-headed human woman Dora had left outside. He was dressed in a suit, but Z could see at least one knife hilt and knew that there would be another two or three stashed on his person, plus a garrote. That was his favorite weapon.
The redhead was wild-eyed, her hair a curling nimbus around her face. Raze and Seraphina quickly stepped in front of Z, shielding him from her view.
Yael’s aquiline features were drawn in barely concealed irritation. “I found this human loitering around.” Then he spotted Dora. “What is that doing here?”
The sparkle that had been present in Dora’s eyes throughout most of the afternoon vanished. “I am not a ‘that’.”
Yael yelped and let go of the young woman. Z assumed Dora had zapped him with her magic.
“They are here at our invitation,” Raze said carefully. “Please leave the human alone.”
Azrael and Dru appeared behind Yael then, then pushed past him into the room. Dru eyed the red-haired woman, then Dora.
“Yael, I know your personality sucks, but even you know that manhandling a woman is a bad idea, right?” Dru’s voice rang through the room, forcing a chuckle even from Z. “I catch you doing it again and you’ll lose the hand.”
Yael glowered at her.
There seemed to be no love lost there.
“Rowan, love, did he hurt you?” Dora called out.
The redhead stopped rubbing her arm. “Not really.”
Dora stood, taking a shaky breath. She clapped a hand on Z’s naked shoulder. “Your wings will grow back,” she said quietly. “Seraphina agreed to fair payment: know that as part of the payment, I want a favor granted to me in the future.”
He held her dark gaze. “Deal.”
And a tingle spread through him as the agreement was sealed, this magic older than time itself.
Chapter 25
Peony kept largely to her room and the two communal chambers where she was allowed access: the general rest area and the dining hall. No one spoke to her, and when she walked into a room, the reception was almost physically chilly. Standing in the entrance to the dining hall, she looked over the forty or so women assembled there. They were all dressed in Victorian-era gowns in a range of colors from the palest pink to deep sunset orange, with their hair upswept into fancy styles that Peony imagined took hours to complete.
She felt out of place here: disconnected. She didn’t share the olive-green complexion of the others and she was the only one to have a shock of white hair; most of the women had locks that ranged from brown to black.
She was also conscious of her jeans and woolen sweater that Selene had knitted for her one Christmas. It was gaudy, in reds and yellows and greens, but it was warm and it wasn’t scrubs, which comprised most of her wardrobe. So far, there had been no use for her medical talents here. None of the female Mortus spoke to her, beyond the bare minimum required, and when she tried to engage one in conversation, the other demon always had somewhere else to be.
Sighing, she took an empty seat at the far end of one of the tables and smiled at the male servant who approached her with a bowl of soup. He wore a crisp white shirt, complete with black cravat and trousers, and shiny boots. The demon stumbled slightly, then righted himself and placed the bowl in the empty place in front of her. Not a single drop of soup was spilled on the white linen tablecloth, despite his brief unsteadiness. Peony wasn’t sure what the dish was made of, and she wasn’t going to ask. The Mortus lived in Inferno; the flora and fauna would be quite different to the Human Realm and Tartarus. She was better off not knowing the dish’s ingredients, otherwise she might not keep her food down.
“Don’t smile at the servants.”
Peony looked over her shoulder at the speaker. It was a younger female Mortus, with blonde hair that shone with red-gold highlights. It was strikingly different in the sea of black and browns, although not as distinctive as Peony’s.
“Sorry?” She wasn’t sure she understood the statement. Was it wrong to be polite?
You are in the den of the Mortus, some of the most feared demons in all three circles of the underworld. Of course it’s wrong.
“Don’t smile at them.” The blonde had eyes that reminded Peony of violets. “They are already castrated—if you smile and they return any kind of sentiment, they will be punished. Ignore them.”
Castrated.
She looked anew at the male servants floating elegantly around the room, pouring drinks, serving appetizers and entrees.
Why did they have to be mutilated for that?
“The harem is for the king and noblemen only,” the blonde explained, having interpreted Peony’s shocked expression. “No one else may procreate with us.”
There was a slap, and Peony stared at the Mortus next to the blonde. The unfamiliar dark-haired demon had hit the blonde on the exposed skin of her arm, leaving a purple handprint.
“You do not speak to the abomination.”
The blonde lowered her chin, almost to her chest, but did not reply.
Then the dark-haired demon glowered at Peony. “Don’t speak to us.”
Peony hadn’t started the conversation—the blonde had only tried to be helpful, for the servant’s sake—but she wasn’t about to point that out. She wasn’t going to get the blonde into more trouble.
Instead of replying, she spooned a mouthful of soup and focused on eating. It had a strange aftertaste, but wasn’t entirely unpleasant. It was followed by meat and what she assumed were vegetables, and a dessert she didn’t want—it had a little too much resemblance to pus.
When she stood, half of the eyes in the dining hall focused on her. Some were curious, but most were angry.
Thanks, Dru.
Although, even the Mortus female who’d saved her on her first night in the harem hadn’t thought t
hat Dru’s victim—or Peony’s—was worthy of life.
As Peony left the dining room and walked into the communal area, she spotted a woman coming through a door to the far right, away from the main double doors. She had jet-black hair and wore nothing but a dark-red silk nightgown that had been badly ripped. Her face was a mottled collection of bruises as she turned a blind gaze on the room. Then she tottered unsteadily and collapsed.
Peony rushed forward. She reached the demon’s side seconds after she fell, and quickly checked her airways and heartbeat, before rolling her into the recovery position. Peony was strong, but she didn’t want to move the demon on her own—this close, she realized it wasn’t the nightgown itself that was red; it was stained with blood.
The demon’s face was largely unrecognizable; a broken nose had resulted in two black eyes, and her lip was split and oozing blood. Peony ran her hands over her, trying to catalogue the wounds. The demon’s skull reminded her of Z’s.
Not again.
Why must people hurt each other?
“What did you do?”
Peony snapped her head up to look into the clear gray gaze of the demon who’d saved her life two nights ago.
“Why do you assume I did anything?” Peony asked, then scowled. That clearly was not the best response she could have provided. “She came in looking like this.” She pointed at the silver-painted door behind her.
“I see.” There was no emotion in the older demon’s face.
The woman barked out a series of orders, and within a minute, a hospital gurney was brought for the fallen demon.
They have medical facilities here?
The injured woman was loaded carefully onto the trolley by three Mortus females who had been in the dining room minutes earlier, and then they were wheeling her away. Peony followed, wishing she’d spent more time cataloguing the girl’s injuries.
“Why are you still here?” the older demon asked, glaring at Peony over the gurney.
“I’m a doctor, I can help.”
A dismissive wave was her response, but Peony wasn’t asked to leave.
Soon, they reached a stone-walled room, kept warm by a small brazier in one corner. The smell of something like antiseptic hung in the air, and a steel table was set in the middle of the room, reminding Peony of a surgical theatre. A floor-to-ceiling glass cabinet lined the rear wall, full of jars and bags and herbs that she doubted she could name.
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