“You can control her?” I asked.
“With the power of a Court, perhaps…”
“This Court?” I laughed. “Your Court is uninspiring, Baal.”
“The Fall decimated our ranks,” he grumbled.
“Make a new one.”
“It’s not that simple.”
I snorted a laugh. “The rules we have lived by for millennia no longer apply. Two demon Courts sprang up in LA, albeit weak ones, but they wielded more power than yours does here.” I pointed at Gem. “Ice.” Myself. “Air.” The king. “Earth.” Mammon was fire and Torrent water. The king and queen would take their natural places as control and chaos. Voila, a Court.
“It’s not that simple. We are not just our elements. You are Pride, Mammon is Greed—”
Again, I pointed at Gem. “Princess of Determination. Torrent is—”
“Resilience,” Gem suggested with a shrug. It was as good a suggestion as any.
If demons could give droll looks, Baal was giving me one now. “You can’t make it up. You must grow into your name. Become it. Besides, we do not have those goodly attributes in the netherworld.”
“You don’t have a Court either,” I reminded him. “New Court, new rules, and we get to make them. Gem and Torrent have earned whatever name they claim. All we need is the mad queen on our side.”
“You make it sound so… trivial.”
“Because I’ve faced Mother and all of this”—I gestured at the space around us and the two empty thrones—“is nonsense. People are dying. My home is changing beyond recognition. A new Court, combined with the mad queen, is our only hope of stopping her. I know what your mad queen can do. She unmade the Prince of Envy. She can unmake Mother and turn her back into the elements. After the queen succeeds, we will deal with the fallout.”
“She could also unmake the rest of us.”
Oh, she could. But I had a hunch the queen wouldn’t be so quick to slaughter those who had done her no harm. “It is a risk. But what choice do we have?”
“There must be another way. The sword…”
“The elemental sword is made from the veil. It can’t be wielded against itself.” At least, that’s what I assumed after reaching for it and finding nothing. Or maybe I hadn’t been in control enough to summon it. But I did not want to dwell on yet another failure.
Baal bowed his head. “I’ll need time to prepare.”
That sounded like an agreement, and it was good enough for me. “You don’t have long.”
What had once been verdant meadows and ancient forests stretching for mile upon mile had been burned long ago. That didn’t stop Gem from pacing the nearby shore while we waited for Baal to come around. Oily waters lapped at Gem’s small feet, painting them black.
“When I first came here, everything tried to kill me,” she said. A lesser scampered out of sight. A small thing, but its sharp teeth could have made short work of Gem’s human appendages. “Now they run.”
I had been watching her from afar, but clearly, she knew I was close. I materialized behind her and fell into step.
“A lesser won’t pick a fight with something higher on the food chain.”
“Is that what we’ve done?” She stopped and gazed across a lake so black and smooth its surface reflected the purples in the sky. “Humans, I mean…”
“Mother was always inside the veil. EcoZone merely gave her a voice and, eventually, an exit. Baal is as much to blame for keeping her existence secret from us.”
“How do we put her back, Li’el?”
The waters swirled around a rock, distorting my already grim reflection. My wings ached, but it was a familiar ache, almost comforting. “With a demon like your brother.”
Gem frowned. “Chaos?”
“The mad queen is like Delta. When I last saw her, she was nine years old and incredibly powerful. Now, she’s likely your age.”
“And the king has kept her inside the fortress all this time?”
I nodded. Gem was likely thinking of her time inside the Institute, reared away from what she called the Outside. She had much in common with the mad queen.
“She’s extremely volatile and completely unpredictable.”
She smiled sadly. “I know all about chaos.”
Of course she did, having been designed to combat it should her brother lose control. “The ritual Baal performed to balance the elements, restore the veil, and contain her may have tempered her.” We could hope.
“Baal is… not what I was expecting. The other demons were, but you and him, you almost sounded normal.”
“What were you expecting? Grunts and growls? Maybe some posturing and a few sliced throats?”
“Well, yeah. Demons.”
“I’m afraid this Court is not the best example of how the Dark Court once ruled. The Fall decimated the princes, and Baal hasn’t forgotten his time among humans. He is perhaps one of the more reasonable demons.”
“Like you?”
“There are no other demons like me.” I grinned.
A moment passed where only the distant cries of lessers interrupted a gentle silence.
“Back at the facility, you were… were you in control?”
The power, the thrall, had been tempting. “I was.”
She nodded and toed the blackened pebbles. “Adam stood up to her.”
A great many people hated Adam Harper, but few could argue his death hadn’t been brave.
“We will stop Mother.” Anna’s death would also have a purpose. I had to make this right for her and for the hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Mother’s tower.
“You can’t know that…”
Before Adam’s death, she had been determined. Now, she looked lost. I nudged her wing back and hooked an arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Don’t lose hope, little icy half-blood.”
Her wan smile was for my benefit.
The surface of the lake rippled, and the earth shuddered. A flock of lessers exploded from their fortress roosts, and the netherworld air breathed out.
The king had set the mad queen free.
The mad queen sat rigidly on her throne, smiling the kind of smile chiseled into wooden dolls. She was naked, like all demons, but where her body should have been, a cloak of shadows licked and coiled around glimpses of pale flesh.
A not entirely unpleasant shudder tracked down my spine, urging me to pull my wings close and drop to my knees.
She is the lesser of two evils, I reminded myself.
There was no sign of the confused nine-year-old human girl. She had shed and discarded that part of her. The creature that had emerged from her fortress cocoon was all demon. That was probably a good thing. Demons were more predictable than humans, although chaos would always be notoriously chaotic.
Baal stood to her left, guarded and reserved. The king wasn’t pleased with having his queen unleashed.
“Pride, yes?” the mad queen asked. Oddly, American tinged her accent. She had spent the first few years of her human life among Institute scientists. If they could see her now, would they be proud or horrified?
I bowed my head and checked on Gem beside me. She swallowed, knowing all too well what it was like to face chaos and survive. “Yes, I am Pride.”
“I have you to thank for my release?”
“With… conditions.”
The mad queen chuckled. “You were not among those who trapped me, were you?” She pointedly skipped her gaze to Baal, placing the blame on him, but her king didn’t respond.
“No,” I agreed. “I was not.”
“I suppose I am in your debt. For freeing me, I will grant you a favor, Pride. What will it be?”
There might have been a time when I would have asked her to make me her king, but that time and that demon were long dead. “I ask that you unmake a god.”
When she laughed, it was the sound of walls crumbling and time coming undone. Madness lived inside her, the unique madness of chaos that repelled and enthralled demon-k
ind, but also the kind of madness we needed to save both worlds.
Chapter 30
Dark ringlets fell from the mad queen’s head, almost concealing her two tiny spiral horns. She stood, gripping the yacht’s rail, and looked at the tower thrusting up from the shore into the churning clouds above. She had probably believed she would never be free, or that she would never return to the human world, yet here she was, free and hopefully about to help us. I hoped her goodwill lasted.
Baal stood behind me on the opposite side of the deck, wearing his human guise “Jerry,” who was almost as big as his true demon form. Jerry’s shaved head and all-over tattoos—similar to those he had gifted Mammon with—marked him as somebody not to be screwed with. He hadn’t acknowledged me since releasing the queen. I took that to mean I would likely pay for releasing chaos on us all, but not yet.
Through the yacht’s windows, I spotted Gem standing with Torrent inside the cabin. They talked too quietly for me to hear without eavesdropping. Gem was probably the only person I could trust to manage Torrent’s unique condition, but I did not hold out hope for them. Torrent was little more than a figment of the demon Kar’ak’s imagination. Their future was uncertain.
When Noah split off from the group and climbed the stairs to the control cabin, I ducked inside and followed, finding him looking out at an ocean colored pink from the red skies.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
He tensed and only relaxed when he saw I was wearing my human guise, the man he thought he had known.
“I dunno.” He shrugged. “Part of me wants to run away. And knowing what I do about them now…”
We could see the king and queen on the deck below. One stared at what was left of LA, and the other stared at his queen as though expecting her to attack him.
“It’s probably best not to think about it.”
“Uh-huh. The king and queen of Hell are on the same boat as me, I’m surrounded by demons, and we’re about to try to stop some kind of demon-goddess from destroying the world. Sure, I’ll try not to think about it.” A shrill laugh finished his sentence.
I planted my hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “When have I ever let you down?”
“When you let them take you away for two years.” I’d expected the sadness in his eyes, but the acidity in his words? “You could have stopped Christian from taking you and you didn’t.”
“Because I would have killed him and his men, and they didn’t deserve that. You forget, I have lived hundreds of centuries. Two years means nothing to me.”
His nostrils flared and his lips turned downward. “It meant something to me.” The words held more weight than they should have. His feelings went beyond simple friendship.
Ah.
I understood now why he hadn’t left. Why he was still here despite the nightmares surrounding him. Why a human, mortal and vulnerable, chose to live among monsters. Of course there was only one reason why he would face such things.
He tried to cover the confession with a smile, but it didn’t stick. “You probably think I’m an idiot, right?”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot. Love is a perfectly natural response when faced with someone as magnificent as I.”
His eyes widened. Shock dashed across his face, and then he saw my crooked smile and laughed. “I hate you sometimes.”
I patted his shoulder. “I often inspire the whole range of human emotions. It’s a talent.”
“Gem told me they call you Prince of Pride where you come from. They got that right, huh?”
“Prince of Magnificence was taken.”
He turned to admire the demons on the deck below. The humor faded from his face. He bumped his fist against the controls. “What am I doing here?”
I covered his fist with my hand, holding it tight. “Reminding us who we’re fighting for.”
He looked at my hand on his and then up at me.
Over the years, I learned that we do not choose who we love. Oh, we think we do. Humans and demons alike assume they have control of such things, but they don’t. We don’t. Love is like chaos, wild and unpredictable. It is as likely to destroy as it is to flourish.
I would have spared Noah that fate had I realized his feelings sooner. No good could come from loving demons. I released his hand. “Get us close to the shore and drop anchor. We’ll need you.”
“Do you…” He swallowed hard with a click. “Do you need me?”
“Noah…” He turned his face away. “I will always need my friends.”
He nodded sharply.
I descended to the lower deck. The yacht’s engines growled as Noah fired her up.
“Ready?” Gem asked.
“For some things but not others.” At her confused expression, I added with a reassuring smile, “Let us hope so.”
Akil waited on the exposed rocks at the foot of the tower, his tailored attire obscenely human against the backdrop of Mother’s tower.
“What’s the suit doing here?” Torrent growled.
Gem pressed her little hand against my chest, holding me back. “Let me talk with him.”
I glanced back at the mad queen and Jerry making their way up the rocks. Mammon couldn’t fail to notice who they were, yet there was no hint of surprise on his human face. But he wasn’t the type of demon to let emotions show on his face that he didn’t put there. If anything, he appeared mildly amused by our arrival.
Was he Mother’s minion, I wondered.
“Li’el…?” Gem asked.
I covered Gem’s hand with mine, pressing it closer to my chest. “Do not trust him.”
She had grown and changed. She was not the same naive little icy half-blood girl who had let demons control her.
“I can take him.” She winked.
Mammon was thousands of years old and an expert at manipulating human emotions, of which Gem had many. She most definitely could try to take him. Many had tried and failed.
Gem met my glare with her own. Princess of Determination, indeed. I released her hand, letting her go.
The king as “Jerry” stopped next to me while the oily touch of the queen’s chaos crept closer to my other side. It did not stand between them by chance.
The boat’s engines revved as Noah pulled the vessel away from shore, leaving just Christian clambering over the rocks. The hunter had been stubborn in his wish to join us. Perhaps he had something to prove.
Gem stopped in front of Akil, looking tiny compared to the man/demon. Akil lifted a hand and brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek. The intimate touch set my invisible wings on edge. He said something too softly for me to hear before the brisk ocean breeze snatched it away. I fought the urge to turn myself into air and insert myself between them. Gem would not fall for his tricks. She was better than that, better than him.
The mad queen’s cloak of chaos tendrils licked around my legs. I slid my gaze sideways. The look in her eyes spoke of revenge. She had her glare trained on Akil. He, alongside the king, had trapped her in the fortress, and now she had both within her reach. I deliberately caught her eye. Chaos churned in her gaze.
“Revenge will change nothing,” I whispered, sending the words to her on a puff of air so only she would hear.
She tilted her head, letting the words sink in. How many times had I sought revenge on Mammon for all he had stolen from me? For decades, I had thought of nothing else. Revenge had become second nature, until the Fall, until all those months I had spent in hiding, until Gem had come and everything had changed. I had changed. Could the queen of chaos change too?
“Wait!” Gem blurted.
Akil’s arm hooked around Gem, and with a smile tossed carelessly my way, he vanished, taking her with him.
I sprang forward and was met with the king’s arm blocking my way.
“Move!” I snapped.
“Mammon has his reasons,” the king drawled.
“And what if those reasons have nothing to do with saving this world or its peo
ple?”
“Mammon has changed.”
I hooked my claws into the king’s clothing and yanked him forward, unfurling my wings and discarding my human act. “Change is not always good!”
With a snarl, I flung him aside and dissolved into air.
Damn him. Damn them all. I would not let Mammon take Gem from me.
It didn’t take long to find them. Mammon had taken her to Mother’s chamber at the top of the tower. I silently poured through the tunnel as Akil threw Gem to her knees in front of Mother.
“Half-bloods are not mistakes,” he declared. “They are evolution. They are better in every way. Do not destroy a masterpiece merely because you cannot see its beauty. Build on it.”
Mother stood at the center of her chamber, and all around her, mounds of flesh were piled high. The stench of death hung heavy and warm in the air. Limbs rotted, and skin shriveled. Mounds of dead demons. No… I drifted closer. Failed creations. Piles and piles of her “mistakes.” And Akil had brought Gem here?
“You bring me these gifts, my child,” Mother crooned, gossamer wings refracting the light. “But I cannot build on flawed foundations.”
Akil had been bringing her demons to work on. These were all his gifts.
But not Gem. Never my Gem.
“These hybrids, half-bloods, they are not like the others,” he said.
If I materialized, Mother would likely toss me from the tower or worse. There had to be another way to get to her.
Gem hadn’t moved. Her blue eyes tracked Mother, and there, in her hands, jagged icicles formed.
Akil circled the room, drawing Mother’s attention away from Gem. “What if you returned to us too soon?” he asked Mother. “What if this girl is your masterpiece? Human and demon. The best of both of your creations. I do not deny we are flawed. Demons and humans, we are imperfect. The atrocities we have committed, the millions slaughtered in the name of greed, pride, and fear. You look upon us and our history and you see our mistakes, you see how we have destroyed the worlds you gifted us, but the half-bloods are different. Demons will fail. Humans will fail. It is in our nature to destroy ourselves, but among the destruction, your creations evolved. Don’t you see, Mother?” He stood with his back to the tower’s vast platform into the sky, drawing all of Mother’s attention away from Gem. “Human and demon together. They are diamonds in the rough.”
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