by Rex Jameson
Chapter 7
Courting the Council
Batarel tried to roll over, but Rabishu held onto him and forced her head onto his chest to anchor him in place. She was trying to be playful, but he wasn’t a stuffed toy. After watching his nephew destroy much of the masonry in the prison wing under the Courts, he had a lot to think about, and he would do just about anything to postpone confronting how badly he had screwed things up.
She traced her fingers along one of the nastier scars on his chest and nicked his side with a blade that slipped out of her skin.
“Sorry, dear.”
Batarel grumbled in response. Just another scar. He deserved that and more. Tomorrow his brother and sister-in-law would be put to death in front of an angry mob, and a powerful old enemy of his clan would ascend the throne. How had Eranos done it? Batarel would have been impressed had there not been such terrible ramifications for people he loved.
“May I ask you something?” he said.
“It’s always business with you.”
“I just have a lot on my mind.”
“I know.”
He recalled Ostat’s wedding and his speech at the reception. Olivia had been so beautiful. Like any red-blooded demon, he had fancied her, but despite the promiscuous nature of demon society, she was his brother’s and never to be his. And now her head would fall from a stone slab across bloodied steps. Children would play with it. He had seen too many beheadings to be naive about how the common folk would react.
“What is it?”
“I’ve failed my house.”
She slapped him hard on the chest and gave him a disapproving look. “You are part of the Council. House ties die when you enter.”
“Did they die for Eranos?”
“He sacrificed his neutrality for the greater good.”
“You really believe that?”
She eyed him shrewdly. “Are you saying that I am so fresh out of the womb that he has betrayed my trust and manipulated me into endorsing a coup?”
“I would never say that.” Batarel pursed his lips. She was on the right track, though. Eranos had single-handedly manufactured the Goblin War. That demon was capable of anything, just as long as it was devious.
“Tomorrow, I lose a brother, and maybe even two nephews.”
“Sariel is Council,” she said. “He’s untouchable. And Eranos apparently has plans for Lucifer.”
Batarel laughed and felt a sharp pain in his sides. Looking down at her he could tell that, this time, the blades coming out was no accident.
“Sariel’s contract ends when his father’s head falls to the pavement. Perhaps you’ve forgotten?”
She apparently had. Her eyes grew a bit wide. “I’ll make sure he renews his contract.”
“Eranos is about to behead the most efficient, benevolent, and pliable ruler that the Council has ever worked with, and two of the most dangerous demons in the universe are going to be forced to watch their father and mother die. Are you sure you can’t convince Eranos to exile them instead?”
“All four of them?”
“The alternative is almost as bad as not building the deflector.”
She retracted some blades from her arm on his chest, drawing more blood, and fluttering her eyes at him. “I can assure you that there are more dangerous creatures out there.”
“Perhaps,” Batarel said, “but you don’t know Lucifer and Sariel like I do. When Lucifer gets angry, he doesn’t get sloppy. Well, in a way, I guess he does, but in the heat of the moment, my nephew just gets more efficient. He improvises, and that makes it look haphazard, but he seems to have moments of clarity. He would have made a great king, but I have always wondered if he doesn’t have a touch of oracle in him.”
“Maybe we should recruit him into the Council,” she joked, but he missed the humor.
“It’s too late for that.”
She rolled her head off his chest, and he watched her as she turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. She stretched out her arms, blade tips poking through the red slits in her skin. A chill spread down Batarel’s spine.
“What would you have me do?”
Batarel moved to his side so he could view her closely. “Let me tell you a story …”
Her lips twitched and a grin crept across her face. She turned to meet his eyes.
“Your father has been captured by your enemies, and he has been slated for execution. After millions of years fighting for and serving the realm, and hundreds of thousands of years in prison, you, his heir apparent, have been ordered to watch this man’s death. Your mother, too, will be looking at you as the executioner’s axe falls down on her neck.
“Now, imagine the man who is killing your father is going to ask you to work for him.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
“Now, forget that you are a magic-less soldier who is limited by the carnage he can spread with two blades, one of which he has borrowed from a brother he has killed on Earth. Envision yourself as a magic-wielding, unscrupulous assassin who jumps at a contract whenever it might give him the opportunity to drive a short dagger into the heart of someone he has never met while breathing into their face. This is your father and mother on the slab, and you will no longer be bound by magical law enforced by your contract to the Council …”
“Sariel will renew. I’ll draw up the papers tomorrow.”
“After the beheading?”
“There will not be enough time before noon.”
Batarel chuckled, put his hand to his mouth, and shook his head. She just wasn’t getting it. Might as well just get to the question.
“You asked me what I am asking you to do, but I am more interested in what you wouldn’t do.”
“This sounds like a political question,” she tilted her head as her jaw went slack. “From you? Really?”
“It’s a practical question.”
“Well, by all means, ask away.”
“If there is an escape attempt tomorrow, will the Council interfere with the business of the Courts in the market place?”
She nestled her head back onto his chest and traced a finger along his largest scar again. He received another familiar stabbing pain in his side, but she didn’t apologize.
“The Council only interferes in matters of magic. Eranos says he can handle the new realm and its secular affairs, and I see the executions as purely secular affairs. Unless magic is used to aid in an escape, I see no reason for our involvement.”
Batarel kissed and mounted her. She couldn’t have given him a more perfect answer. She placed a hand on his cheek and scratched along his jaw with both a fingernail and an extended blade.
“Perhaps a little rougher this time?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he gladly obliged.
