"We will not share your bed," Hikari said.
"You will share my bed," I said. "You and Chrissy. No arguments accepted. I'll sleep out here on the couch. Asshole there can sleep in the kitchen or in the bathtub or in the hallway for all I care. Dude pissed me off, he can like it or lump it."
The dude in question finally threw off the rest of my command. His head came up and his eyes focused on me. He didn't say anything, simply felt for his knife. I shifted one finger into a claw, pricked another finger, and let a spark of hellfire glow. "No," I said. "You're not going to attack me in my own home. I'm tired, I'm pissed off, and you're annoying. This is your last warning. Next time, I'll flick this spark right at your crotch. We on the same page?"
"Don't threaten him," Tink snapped.
"I'm not threatening him," I said. "I'm making factual statements of what will happen if he keeps up the stupid bravado."
Julian had frozen in place. Chrissy leaned toward him. "Look, Jule. He's letting us stay here. Stop being a jerk about it."
"He attacked me!" he protested. "And you're going to sleep in the same apartment with him? What if he tries to command you to do something?"
I knew where that was going. "Where's the fun in that?" I asked. "I do have some pride, you know. Besides, it's too much effort."
"I don't trust you, demon," he said.
Big surprise there. "I'm a halfblood, for the record," I said, letting the spark of hellfire vanish. "My dad was as human as you. If you don't trust me, you can go find a park bench and sleep there. I'm not going to touch the ladies if they don't want me to, and if you can't trust me that far, you are not sleeping under my roof."
"Of course you'd say that. You can just command them to do whatever you want, then command them to forget, and no one would be the wiser."
"Knock it off, Julian," Tink snapped. "You can trust him."
"What?" Julian glared at me. I realized I had said the same exact thing, only louder.
Tink eyed me. "You came after me, even after I told you off. You saved my ass again. I was wrong about you."
I clutched my chest. "What have you done with my beloved Tinkerbell?"
"Shut up. I can admit when I was wrong." She looked over at Hikari and then at Chrissy. "If he says he won't touch you, he won't."
"I trust him," Hikari said.
"If Hikari trusts him," Chrissy said.
I could almost hear Julian grinding his teeth. "Fine. If you two accept it, fine."
"Second condition," I said. "Rent's split evenly while you're here. I have enough saved to make it through the winter, no problem, and I'm going to be looking for work starting next week. Third condition, clean up after yourselves. Mess in the kitchen? Unacceptable. Do you three have transportation?"
Hikari nodded. "Jule brought a car."
"Good. We'll share groceries and cooking duties, unless one of you has an objection."
Chrissy raised her hand. "I'm vegetarian."
"I'm sorry you have such a debilitating condition," I told her. She looked vaguely offended. "So we'll make rabbit food side dishes to keep her happy. What other ground rules do we need?"
"Leave the seat down?" Hikari suggested.
"Knock first," Chrissy added. "Especially you, Jule."
The guy's face turned even darker. "That was an accident."
"Sure."
"Are you quite done?" Tink asked. "You owe me an explanation."
I looked around. "These three know all about what's going on?"
"They know enough."
I took her at her word and told her about the trials. She didn't have much to say about them until the end, when House Lucifer dropped the charges. Her reaction was similar to Jase's, except substantially more violent. Hikari giggled. After that, I trailed off. The next part was what she was going to kill me for. She noticed my pause, demanded the full story.
I gave it to her. By the end, she was squeezing the bridge of her nose with one hand, while her other hand was clenched tightly into a fist. "And then Jase revoked his sanctuary," I finished. "You should have heard him howl."
"Demon, I'm angry with you," she said.
"There's a surprise."
"I'm angry at you for three reasons. First, you went and talked with Azriphel again without calling me. I thought I told you to tell me if you ever met him again."
I shrugged. "I didn't have the opportunity to excuse myself and give you a phone call, then stall him for forty minutes while you got out there."
"Second, I'm angry that you didn't off him yourself while you had the chance."
"Haven't we been over this before? Halfblood versus Duke ends poorly for me. The only way to take them on is by working together. Plus, it was in a sanctuary. If I had even tried, I would have broken it, been cast out, and he would have walked out and turned me into halfblood jelly without a second thought. I don't understand why you always want me to march off into fights I can't possibly win."
"You're such a wuss."
I rolled my eyes and lifted my hands high. "Why me?" Hikari giggled again. That girl had some twisted sense of humor.
"Aren't you going to ask what the third reason is?" Tink asked.
"What is it?"
"We're not done with this yet. I know, I shouldn't be mad at you, you're just the messenger. But shit, demon. It took all our combined effort to take down that first Duke. Now you're telling me that not only is Azriphel involved, his entire House is involved, and they're already planning on starting the process all over again. And they're waiting for us to show up and stop them so they can see what we did to that Duke." She looked up at me, and for once, it wasn't with a scowl or grimace. Instead, she simply looked tired. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you had told them. Really, I wouldn't. That's enough to make even me want to give up. Maybe we should just get the hell out of here before it's too late."
That wasn't at all what I had been expecting. What had happened while I was gone? Normally, she'd have been chomping at the bit to go forth and beat some sense into demons, and doubly so to get a crack at Azriphel. Instead, here she was, plagued by self-doubt, too tired to even give me shit for it.
Chrissy broke the silence with a cough. Eyes turned to her and she flushed. "Sorry, but I'm curious. Why didn't you take their deal, Zay? Like Anna said, no one would blame you if you did that. It'd be saving people. You'd be able to save yourself."
I looked at Tink. "It wouldn't save her."
Silence. All eyes were on me. Hikari and Chrissy were staring, while even Julian favored me with a small smile.
Tink looked at me as if she'd never seen me before. Something of a sense of wonder infused her expression, echoed by confusion, followed by pain. A shadow of pain, just for a second, and then she jumped to her feet. "Bathroom," she said, and ran out of the room.
"The hell?" I asked. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Something right," Hikari said.
"Maybe you're not such a bad guy after all," Julian said.
"I think you guys are reading into this way too much. It's the contract," I said. "I couldn't agree to that, it would leave her in danger. I can't leave her alone. What?" All three of them were smirking at me. "Dammit. You can all go blow."
Laughter followed me to the bathroom. "You ok?" I called through the door.
"Fine." Her voice was muffled, more than I expected through the door.
"Sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"Upsetting you."
"I'm not upset."
"Like hell you're not."
The door pulled open and she glared up at me. "I'm not upset. Not with you. Maybe at myself, but that's none of your business, demon."
"Why?" I demanded.
"I said-"
"None of my business, I know. I know that. But dammit, would it hurt you to tell me what you're upset about?"
She punched me in the chest, not hard, but hard enough to push me a step back. "I'm upset because I was close to giving up, and you helped me not give up. That's all."
"That makes you upset?"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
Her eyes went wide, and then she punched me again. No tap this time, this one was hard and low. I gagged and crumpled. She prodded me with her foot. "Because. That's all you need to know. Come on. We've got a war to plan."
"A war?" It came out with a gasp. Bitch punched like she meant it. Probably did.
"Yes. We're at war with House Lucifer," she said. "They don't know it yet. But if they're going to go murder innocents, either mages or normal humans, we're going to stop them. If they're going to blow the Gates of Purgatory open and kill thousands of people in the process, we're going to stop them. If they're not going to stop being assholes, we're going to stop them. You and I, demon. And everyone else we can get together."
I sat up. "You're insane, you know that, Tink?"
"Don't be rude."
"You're declaring war on the strongest demonic House," I pointed out. "And they know we're going to try and stop them. We don't have the advantage of numbers, power, or surprise. They're not even going to underestimate us. This is crazy."
"Are you being a coward again?" She grinned down at me.
I looked up at her. Her grin was infectious. This was insane, certifiably insane. Her. Me. Caleb. A handful of mages. Becky. Anyone else we could convince. We would take on House Lucifer, maybe even the entire Infernal Host. We had no chance whatsoever. None. "You really think we have a chance somewhere in that twisted little mind of yours, don't we?"
"Absolutely." She held her hand out to me, to help me stand. "So are you with me?"
I took her hand. She started to pull me to my feet. I pulled harder. She came tumbling down with a yelp, swore at me as I pushed her off, then scrambled to my feet on my own power. "I'm with you," I told her as she glared up at me, and held my hand out. "But I've wanted to do something like that for months now."
She grasped my hand and I yanked her to her feet. A soft cough from behind me caught my attention and I glanced over my shoulder. Tink whipped her hand free of mine. Hikari smiled at me. "We're with you too, Anna."
"You were listening?"
"This is a small apartment. How could we not hear? Was I interrupting something?"
"Just having some fun," I said.
Her smile widened. "What sort of fun?"
"Petty revenge."
"Oh?"
"Shut up, demon. You too, Hikari. You don't talk much, but when you do, it's too damn much." Tink pushed us both back toward the living room. Hikari's shoulder bumped against mine and I could feel her laughing. There had to be a requirement for mages to be a little crazy. It probably helped.
"So, we're at war," Julian said as we reappeared. "What's the plan, Lord High Commander Tinkerbell?"
Tink flipped him off and sank down into her chair. "Like he said, we don't have a lot of advantages. However, we do have one advantage. We know what they want to do, and how they intend on doing it. Deshavin killed over six hundred people in order to collect their blood. Azriphel has to start from scratch, but he has the advantage of patience. All he needs to do is bait us to move against him. He can just keep using various types of bait until he finds one that we can't pass up. Even failed bait means he gets a step closer to winning. That means we need to hit harder and faster than he'll expect."
"Which means we need a good base of operations," I said.
"Two bases," she said. "Here, for starters. We also have another place we can use. Jase's church. Demons can't go there, not without requesting sanctuary."
"I'm not sure the sanctuary will hold if we're planning a war in the basement."
"If it's a war against demons, I'm sure it will."
"Plus we'll have Caleb. Where is he, by the way?"
Tink shrugged. "He'll be with us. I'm sure he could bring in more angels if needed."
"No," I said. "No way. Veto. I've already been accused of high treason because of him. If I'm involved in something that pits the Choir against the Host, I'm going to be absolutely guilty of high treason, as if I wasn't already." She started to argue the point, but I held a hand up. "Plus, if you bring in more angels, you're throwing a match into a powder keg. Know what I mean?"
She nodded slowly. "I got you. All right. I'll file that idea under last ditch measures."
The other mages in question seemed slightly confused, but took it with good grace. "So we can expect this Duke Azriphel to do something soon?" Julian asked. His tone was slightly skeptical. "Aren't demons more patient than that?"
"Not this time," Tink said. "They think Caleb knows the secret. The balance of power is at stake. That means they need to either get the secret from us, or breach the Gates and take control of that power. Since the latter won't actually work, they're going to do everything they can to get it from us."
"So keeping the secret keeps us alive," Chrissy said.
"Exactly," Tink said. "Got that, demon? We have to get creative."
"Creative. Right." Considering that revealing the secret would get me killed by a host of angry imps, I was in a fully creative frame of mind. On the other hand, if the imps were threatening me, I was sure that Caleb was getting similar treatment from the archons. Tink had to be under a similar restriction too, though she hadn't said anything about it.
"So, do you think that he'll be moving soon?" Julian asked again.
"Very soon," Tink said. "I'd bet on it. Any takers?"
Before anyone could take her up on it, there was a knock on the door. "I seem to be plagued by late night visitors lately," I said. "Expecting anyone? Caleb?"
Tink shook her head. "He's scheduled night shift till six."
I got up and opened the door. There was a list of people I had expected to see. Lionel was down at the bottom. "Sorry to come by so late at night," he said.
"No worries," I assured him. What was Becky's roommate doing here? "As you can see, I've still got company. What can I do for you, Lionel? Want to come in?"
He shook his head and peered around me. "Is Miss Becky here?"
Miss Becky? "No, I haven't seen her today. Did any of you?"
A chorus of negative responses met my question. Sweat dripped down Lionel's cheek, even though the hallway was chilly. "Something wrong?"
"She's missing. She's been missing for three days now," he said. "I was hoping you knew something. No? Her father is growing upset. She hasn't ever done anything like this. He worries that someone may have done something to her."
My heart leaped into my throat. I heard movement behind me and a hand grabbed my shoulder. I looked down into Tink's face. Her expression mirrored my own fear: Azriphel wasn't waiting to make a move. He had already moved.
Chapter Fourteen
Caleb tapped the table. "Our enemy is Azriphel," he announced, as if none of us had figured that out already. "A Duke of House Lucifer. By definition, he is one of the strongest demons in their forces. Behind him stands the strongest demonic house. I don't think I need to tell you that this will be a difficult fight."
"No shit, Sherlock. We've fought a Duke before, and if it wasn't for Becky, we'd be dead. We owe her, and we're going to go after her," I said.
"She's bait," Caleb pointed out.
"Again, no shit."
"We may have to sacrifice her."
"No."
"This is war, Zay," he said. "We will suffer losses. Some of us will die. Sometimes, we may need to accept tactical losses to achieve a strategic objective."
I sat up straight and tried to hold my temper. We had all agreed that Caleb should run the strategic side of our little war, but I hadn't expected him to be so cold. Not when it came to a friend.
"You're wrong," Tink said.
"About what?" Caleb asked.
"We won't sacrifice her. Becky didn't sign on for this. She got pulled into this shit." She jerked a thumb over at me. "He's right. We need to get her out. We owe her."
"They'll be waiting for us."
"That's fine. They won't do anything with her. There's no po
int to it."
Caleb frowned. "What do you mean?"
Tink pulled out a piece of paper from the sheaf of notes at her right hand. "You're wrong about Azriphel being our enemy. He's my enemy, sure, but he's not who we should be focusing on. This is the enemy." She slapped the paper down on the table.
We all looked at it. I recognized the notes from months and months ago, after we had fled the construction site with Deshavin breathing down our necks. She had traced the magic used during the ritual. Tink traced the runic pattern with her finger. "This is our enemy, the point of weakness, what their plans hinge on. Their mage."
"I don't recognize that signature," Chrissy said.
"Looks vaguely familiar," Hikari said. She traced the pattern as well, closing her eyes. After a moment, she shook her head. "Can't place it. But I know who will know."
"The Grandmaster?" Chrissy asked. Hikari nodded. "Well, it's not like we can pick up the phone and call him."
Julian reached into his pockets and pulled out a jingling set of keys. He worked one off the ring and held it out to Hikari. "Take a copy to him."
Hikari reached out and took the key. At the same time, Chrissy flipped through the sheets of paper until she found a blank sheet. She pricked her finger and a touch to the original and the blank resulted in a perfect copy. Hikari grabbed it in her free hand and stood up. "I'll call when I get there," she said. As she swept past to leave, she brushed past me. Her hand briefly gripped my shoulder. "Good luck," she whispered.
I smiled at her and turned my attention back to the table as the door closed behind her. "So, what makes you think this mage is the central point, Anna?" Caleb asked. "And why do you think that Becky is safe? For all we know, she could be dead already."
Tink held up two fingers. "Like you said, she's bait. They're not going to kill her. They already know we're far more dangerous than they had originally imagined. Shit, Azzy said he wouldn't underestimate us anymore. If they get us too angry, we can cause problems for them, and they know it."
"I don't think that's a safe assumption to make," I said. "Besides, aren't we already angry enough?"
"Maybe. Second reason. Their mage is the one they're setting up as figurehead. If we get mad and take him down, they have to start from scratch and find another mage to buy into their plan. Remember, they're killing mages! Once that gets out, who's going to buy in?"
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