by Liz Meldon
The promise seemed to shake the tension that had gathered after her light show, and before she knew it, all three mobsters were shaking hands with Malachi near the conference room door, cackling over what was to come—over all they planned to do to the angel squad once Cordelia’s wards diminished their power.
The thought had her shuddering, especially when Silas’s steely gaze settled back on her; Moira’s power would, in theory, also be weakened inside the magical bubble. Cordelia had warned her about it last night when they finalized their pitch, but to see how the mobsters delighted in angelic weakness—she didn’t trust them for a second not to turn on her.
Liam had to all but drag his lackey out, a trail of fluids in his wake, which Cordelia saw to with another snap of her fingers.
As soon as the door shut, not a mobster in sight, Moira pushed back from the table like it had burned her. She stood with a gasp, a little dizzy now that the adrenaline had started to fade. Within seconds Alaric was up and around the table, a steadying hand on her back. She twitched out of reach; his hand had settled between her shoulder blades. While she knew he did it out of respect, not wanting to touch too low, he’d landed right between her wings.
Wings she could almost feel whenever she lay on her back now. A slight pinch, a little poke against her skin, against the bones underneath. She hadn’t told anyone about it; the only person she wanted to discuss it with was currently locked away in Seraphim Securities.
“You all right?” Alaric asked softly, seeming not to notice her response as he started to rub her back. “You did so well, Moira. Really. You just demoted Edgar to the bottom rung of Liam’s operation, I promise you that.”
“Because I burned him?”
“Because you embarrassed Liam,” Alaric clarified, wiggling his eyebrows at her. “You handled it perfectly.”
Across the room, Malachi and Cordelia stood murmuring to themselves, and Moira finally took what felt like her first true deep breath in over an hour.
“Yeah, I guess I did okay,” she managed with a weak smile. “I feel a bit, uh, lightheaded.”
Overwhelmed. Empowered. High, maybe, on the rush. She pressed a hand to her forehead, only to find it sweaty—or maybe that was just her clammy palm.
“Hang on. I’ll get you something to drink.”
“Water, please,” she said as he zipped across the room to the bar, his ridiculously polished shoes catching the light. Holding the back of the chair, she smiled wearily as Malachi strolled toward her. “So, that went according to plan?”
“More or less,” he said, stopping just a little too close, his large hand clapping down on her shoulder. “I knew they’d test you. Probably couldn’t help themselves. Liam was practically foaming at the mouth the moment he saw you—I suspected he would send Edgar along to propose I loan you out.”
“Yeah, that was horrible.”
“But you handled yourself well.” The chaos demon pulled her toward him, and Moira went, thinking that he wanted to hug her, despite the fact he had never hugged her before. Nor had she wanted him to. However, before she could topple face-first into that burly chest of his, Malachi spun her around—and trapped her in a headlock.
“Malachi,” she choked, slapping at his thick arm as he pressed down on her throat. “W-what are you doing?”
“Just lean into it,” he murmured in her ear. “Just relax.”
“Fuck you.” Moira wheezed, trying the tactics he’d shown her to break free of a headlock. In fact, Malachi had taught her how to swiftly escape a number of body holds, success guaranteed. But he had never held her this tight before. It was like fighting a stone statue.
As the edges of her vision started to darken, she heard glass shatter behind her, followed by Alaric swiftly calling her name—and then snarling Malachi’s. She latched onto the chaos demon’s thumb, hoping to wrench it back, something, like he had shown her.
He merely pressed harder, urging her not to fight, to just relax.
Moira didn’t have time to panic. A good ten seconds later, her mouth gaping and her eyes wide but unseeing, she finally succumbed to the darkness.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Quickly now, Cordie,” Malachi urged. He could hear Alaric stomping across the room toward him, but he hadn’t the time to waste. “She’ll wake up momentarily unless you begin.”
Kicking two of the high-backed chairs aside, he scooped up an unconscious Moira and laid her flat on the table. Moments later, his cousin hopped up on the other side, moving with an unnatural nimbleness that would have deeply unnerved most humans. Just as Moira started to groan, her eyebrows furrowing and her eyes scrunching, Cordelia placed her hands on the hybrid’s temples. Instantly she stilled. Eyes rolled back, the witch began her incantation, and Malachi let out a soft sigh of relief; he certainly didn’t want to smother Moira again to keep her unconscious.
“Malachi,” a hand thumped down on his shoulder, “answer me.”
He whirled around, curling his hands to fists to keep from lashing out at the hybrid. There were very few figures he feared in Farrow’s Hollow, but Alaric’s father was one of them. The mobsters had no real authority; simple demons with no extraordinary talent or skill. Today had gone just as he thought it would, all of them signing that damn contract with a smile.
“Alaric—”
“What are you doing?” the hybrid demanded, peering around him, wide-eyed as he took in Cordelia’s hunched figure. “What is she doing?”
“This is a precautionary measure,” Malachi insisted, battling the urge within—to strike out, to draw blood. He had kept the inner demon so constrained since waltzing out of the hell-gate, and today had been another test of his will. How easy it would have been to tear Silas, Liam, and Henrik limb from limb. Kill the trio. Acquire their businesses. Become the outright commander of the raid on Seraphim Securities.
But he couldn’t do that.
Because Malachi wasn’t interested in upsetting the established order—not when it came to angels, anyway. His reputation had likely tricked the mobster trio into thinking that he only lusted after carnage, that he truly wanted to rip this city apart. That would come in good time, of course. For now, he was, and would remain, hashtag-Team-Incubus-Extraction—as Ella had lovingly dubbed them before they left the house that morning.
“Cordelia, stop.” Alaric lunged forward, but Malachi caught him by the elbow and dragged him across the room.
“If you stop her now, if you disturb her, you risk irreparable damage to Moira’s mind,” he hissed, almost shoving the hybrid up against the window before reigning himself in. “We are altering her memories. She’ll have no recollection of this meeting.”
“What?” Alaric opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Why?”
“Because this never took place,” Malachi told him. “We were never here. The man who runs this hotel is loyal to your father, yes?”
“Yes, but—”
“You will instruct him not to tell a soul of our presence today. Tell him that the wrath of Verrier will rain down upon him should he speak.” That ought to keep any demon’s lips sealed. “Have all the security footage in the lobby erased, do you understand?”
Alaric’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Not really.”
“In Hell, Moira was subjected to a Truth Touch by the enforcers,” Malachi said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt. “When we inevitably go toe-to-toe with her father and his squadron, I predict she will ask them to perform the same touch to prove this isn’t some ploy—that she is actually Aeneas’s child and Severus was wrongly imprisoned. They will be able to tap into memories from the moment she first opened her eyes. They will see him, even if Moira couldn’t. As I recall, her mother’s journal mentioned a presence in the house—likely Aeneas. This meeting needs to be removed from her memories. As far as she’s concerned, we are, er, piggybacking on an assault already planned by the city’s mob families.”
“But we aren’t. We signed the oat
h—”
“Cordelia will wipe our names when she is finished with Moira’s memories,” Malachi told him, brusquely waving off his concerns. It was impossible to remove a name from a contract drawn up by an official in Hell. Fortunately, Cordelia had written this one, with all its flourishes, about an hour before the meeting; removing their names would be a breeze. “The story is that your contacts alerted you to this venture, and we are merely tagging along to pluck Severus out of the rubble.”
The hybrid’s frown deepened. “Are you going to alter my memories too?”
“Do we need to?” Malachi shrugged. “Should we get inside the building, and if we face down the angels, I suspect the rest of us will be…inconsequential.” Never mind that a Truth Touch from a real angel, not a corrupted one in Hell, would fry a demon to dust. The angel would acquire the memories, sure, but the demon wouldn’t survive it. “I’ll remind Moira of the Truth Touch before the assault. Hopefully she will invoke it before they obliterate us.”
“Cordelia’s wards will stop them, won’t they?”
Malachi smirked. “An angel operating at half capacity is still a dangerous thing, Alaric.”
“I’m aware.” He ran a hand through his copper waves, smoothing them down with a sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?”
“Because while I appreciate that Severus has gone and found himself a new brother on Earth,” Malachi growled, a sliver of his own private, personal, pathetic jealousy slipping out, “you are loyal to him. By default, Moira is under your protection, perhaps even more so than mine. I know you’re fond of her. I couldn’t risk you telling her. She would never agree to it, the stubborn creature, and the fewer memories Cordie needs to remove or alter, the better.”
Alaric pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I don’t agree with this.”
“It’s for the best,” Malachi insisted, injecting his words with a dose of sympathy. “This is for her benefit, Alaric. She needn’t be implicated in the maelstrom we’ll unleash on that damn building.”
“It’s done,” Cordelia croaked from across the room before Alaric could say anything further. The hybrid zipped around him, and Malachi followed at a safe distance. His cousin slid off the table, blood pouring from the new wounds on her face. They cracked up her cheeks from the corners of her mouth, giving her a frighteningly wide smile. By tonight, they’d scar over—the price his cousin was all too happy to pay for her magic.
With half her face covered in red, she held her arms out, perhaps hoping Alaric would scoop her up. “Oh, darling, don’t be cross. Mal’s right. It’s in her best interest.”
Her chin quivered, lips trembled, when Alaric skirted around her and went straight to Moira instead. The angel hybrid lay perfectly still on the table, head lolled to one side.
“I’ve made her sleep,” Cordelia muttered thickly when Malachi stopped beside her. His cousin’s gaze fixed longingly on Alaric, watching the way he fussed over an unconscious Moira. Blood continued to weep down her cheeks, and her demonic eyes had retreated. “She will wake in a few hours.”
“I’ll have Ella play along, tell her she fell asleep in front of the television box. She won’t be happy about it, but she’ll do it if it means protecting Moira,” Malachi told her, knowing they would need the human’s support to sell the lie. “Wipe our names from the contract.”
When Cordelia made no move to comply, still staring at the hybrid who had infatuated her so, Malachi sighed. If everyone could control their emotions today, that would be fucking splendid.
“Cousin.” Malachi snapped his fingers in front of her face, noisily jostling her from her stupor. “Cordelia. Now.”
She scowled up at him, then dug into the plentiful fabric of her enormous skirt to retrieve the contract. With a few muttered words, her eyes rolled back in her head, and the names vanished—his, hers, Alaric’s and Moira’s. Gone.
The contract was really quite standard; just because Cordelia had written it didn’t mean it could be anything less. The Latin inscription stated that all the undersigned pledged themselves to the cause of removing the angelic presence from Farrow’s Hollow. All would be in attendance on the night of the assault on Seraphim Securities—those who failed to make an appearance would be disemboweled and fed to hellhounds. Those who broke the contract after the siege commenced would face the penalties of Hell’s oathkeepers, another squadron of Lucifer’s corrupted angels pulling the strings below.
Oathkeepers. Enforcers. No demon wanted to be on the receiving end of their wrath.
“Done,” his cousin said stiffly, rolling the parchment back up.
“See that it reaches the angel in question just before things kick off.”
“It’s all been arranged,” Cordelia told him, shooting him a narrowed look that screamed I know what to do, you arrogant fuck. Malachi smoothed a hand down his suit, only marginally ruffled by her annoyance.
This had been part of the plan from the beginning, from the second the pair cooked it up last week. It was madness, of course. Sheer, unadulterated insanity. But they couldn’t just waltz into Seraphim Securities and demand Severus be released, and without a contract, the mobsters would likely turn tail and run the moment things got hairy.
Malachi had heard stories of the way the mob families ran this city—the way they sneered down at Severus. They didn’t deserve the gift Malachi had offered them by arranging this assault—they deserved to die slowly, painfully. A familiar breed, a better breed, of demon ought to be running Farrow’s Hollow. A higher class. Demons who respected the old ways.
Earth was like the New World: demons who had been poor, powerless, and downtrodden in Hell could shirk the constraints of their Lutum name here if they just worked hard enough.
The very idea offended Malachi’s sensibilities. There was a demon hierarchy for a reason. It was time the topside fuckers remembered that.
Just as he was about to chuckle that very sentiment to Cordelia, to allude to the actual plan they had in play, she stalked to the table and leaned across it to kiss Alaric’s cheek. The hybrid said nothing, but some of the tightness in his jaw dissipated when he glanced at her, a bloody kiss staining his skin.
“Until next week, my darlings,” the witch cooed, hands clasped behind her as she strolled backward toward the door. “Morning of—I’ll come knocking.”
“Enjoy Hell,” Malachi said with a wry grin. “Say hello to Auntie for me.”
“Of course, cousin.” Her smile suggested whatever strain she and he had briefly experienced had disappeared. Malachi watched her go, the contract clasped in hand, and nodded as the door closed behind her. Even if she had no intention of seeking out an oathkeeper, Cordelia still needed to physically go to Hell; there was a good chance one of the mobsters would have a tail on her from the moment she left this building, just to confirm that the contract went where it was supposed to.
Little did any of them know, she had a local witch in her pocket—a human whom Cordelia had imbibed with her magic in the seventies. Hexia owned an occult shop downtown; her mission was to deliver the contract to an angel named Zachariah—according to Severus’s very accurate sketches—just before it all kicked off at Seraphim Securities. Malachi had chosen him because he hadn’t outright attacked Moira the other week. In fact, the angel appeared quite curious about her—until Malachi and Ella interrupted their little staring contest.
Cordelia had tracked the enormous angel’s movements through the city for the last five days, and he always returned to the same building each night. By today, she had his apartment number—and it wasn’t even the penthouse.
What good was all that power if you didn’t abuse it?
Ridiculous do-gooders.
Malachi rubbed at his cheek, the skin rough with newly grown stubble. There were so many moving parts to this—and with one wrong move it could all very easily blow up in his face.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said as he strolled toward the table. “Get this one back—”
&nb
sp; “I’ve got her,” Alaric growled, stepping in front of Malachi and reaching across the table. He pulled Moira’s limp body toward him, then hoisted her up and marched for the door without a word.
“Oh, cut the dramatics.” Malachi trailed after him, hands in his pockets. “This needed to be done.”
When Alaric struggled to both hold Moira and open the door, Malachi let him for a few moments before reaching out and opening it for him. The hybrid shot him yet another annoyed look before blitzing down the hall toward the elevator, bypassing his daytime sitter Gibson without a word. The former debt collector glanced at Malachi, eyebrows furrowed in a way that demanded an explanation, and he shook his head.
“Children,” Malachi mused as he fell in line beside the demon. “So sensitive these days.”
Malachi scrutinized the hybrid as he stepped into the elevator, settling against the back wall while Gibson punched the button to take them to the underground parking lot. Alaric, meanwhile, readjusted Moira in his arms and refused to meet the chaos demon’s eye.
Sensitive indeed. Hopefully not sensitive enough that Cordelia would need to delve into his memories too. He could only imagine the devastation Verrier would unleash upon them should he find out.
But if it meant getting Severus back, if it meant not fucking all this straight to Hell, then Malachi would do it without hesitation. When it came to the family that mattered to him, they’d all learn, one way or another, that it was unwise to test him.
Chapter Five
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Would you stop pacing already?” Malachi demanded. He sat crouched against the wall of the café where Moira and Severus had enjoyed breakfast daily for two weeks straight as he sketched angels. Elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling limply in front of him, the chaos demon tracked her with his bright blue gaze, mouth in a permanent frown. “It’s driving me mad.”
