Kingdom of Lies

by Debra Dunbar

  “Shit if I know. Any one of the ancients might think of a breeding incidence if the right candidate were to present himself. Or maybe not. They’re not exactly active in Hel these days,” Terrelle grabbed a bite of bean curd from Gregory. I held my breath, wondering how my angel would react to food theft. Instead of a smackdown, Gregory smiled indulgently and extended the container—just like demons do to young. Huh, maybe he would make a good baby daddy.

  “Okay, let’s think about this one,” I mused. “How would a demon go about impressing any of the ancients to such a degree that they’d be forming offspring before the ink was dry on the breeding contract?”

  Terrelle thought as she chewed, swallowed, then took the container from Gregory with a shy smile. “A gift of power?”

  “Like laser beams from the eyes and a cage of obsidian?”

  Terrelle shook her head. “No. Like evicting the angels from this world and presenting it to an ancient to rule over, like causing a major part of the angelic host to fall. Like an archangel’s head on a platter.”

  “I think any of those are a bit above Avarnak’s abilities,” Gregory commented. “Even with the benefit of a magical spell.”

  Probably, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. “Let’s think this through. Archangels—Uriel is who knows where, and probably undetectable anyway. Rafi is still in Alaska?” Gregory nodded. “Gabe in Aaru, and you here.”

  “So either me or Raphael would be likely targets.” Gregory shook his head and looked to the ceiling. “Should I dash up to Alaska to warn Rafi that a demon shooting laser beams out of his eyes is liable to make an attempt on his life?”

  He was so not taking this seriously. “Pamersiel died because he thought Avarnak was an annoying fly. Don’t make the same mistake. I doubt he knows where Rafi is, but you’re an easy target to find. All he needs to do is continue to attack your enforcers, and you’ll come to him. He’s killed two, hurt your gate guardian and left her with a message of defiance. He’s throwing the glove in your face. Eventually you’re going to get pissed off enough to hunt him down.”

  “And he’ll be waiting for you,” Terrelle cautioned. “He’s not stupid. He’ll have a trap set, and he’ll count on you underestimating him.”

  “Lucky for me, I have been taught the error of underestimating an opponent by a certain imp.” Gregory smiled at me. “Okay, Cockroach. I’ll warn Rafi, and I’ll be proactive about hunting this demon. You do realize this means we’ll have an increased number of otherworldly creatures to round up afterward? The longer we delay closing the gates, the more will come through.”

  He was right, but his safety and Rafi’s came first. And I might not care about a bunch of enforcer angels getting ripped to bits, but Gregory did. What he valued was my duty to help protect. Better to neutralize Avarnak before he killed any more Grigori.

  “I don’t get it, though.” Terrelle shook her head.

  “Get what?”

  “Avarnak. Even with the humiliation he suffered, the retaliation on Pamersiel was way over the top. That didn’t happen a few centuries ago; it was nearly two-thousand years. And killing him? The Avarnak I knew of would have just stolen all his shit and left a note behind. He would have only killed Pamersiel in self-defense, not this aggressive attack. He’s a greed demon. They’re sneaky. They play the blame game. They refuse to take any personal responsibility for anything. They don’t do direct confrontation; they just go behind your back and steal your stuff.”

  “So? Maybe the increase in power went to his head?”

  Terrelle pursed her lips. “Maybe. Still, that’s a major personality shift. Like, a crazy personality shift. And going after archangels or kicking them out of this realm? That’s fucking insane.”

  I didn’t know Avarnak. I had no idea if the gem had done more than just given him power. Maybe it had sent him over the edge. It’s not like we’d seen the gem’s effect on anyone else to compare it to. The only other one who’d been subjected to its power had been the kitten.

  The kitten.

  I picked up my cell phone and called Nyalla.

  “Everything alright?” I asked.

  “Yep. Your angel sent Beatrix to me, so I took her to the park to feed the ducks, and then we went to the playground and hit the swings and teeter-totters. Do you know, she’s never been on a swing before?”

  “Good. Make sure you get her something to eat besides fast-food crap. Take her out for seafood or a decent steak or something. The woman has been living on sweet-and-sour pork for damn near a century.”

  “Will do.”

  I was so glad she’d decided to come here, and that Gregory had thought to send her directly to Nyalla. This was the perfect assignment to give the human—one that would hopefully help Beatrix heal and would keep my girl safely away from power-mad demons and killer kittens. Which reminded me... .

  “Hey, did you see that kitten before he got changed? What was he like before?”

  “I don’t really know. A boy smuggled him into the mall in his backpack. I remember seeing a little gray head sticking out and thinking how cute it was. Then the guy at the jewelry store started yelling about a thief, and mall security was running. Next thing I knew, the kid was crying about someone taking his cat. Then things started exploding.”

  “Thanks. Have fun with Beatrix.” I disconnected and stared at the phone. A kitten gentle enough to carry around in a backpack.... He didn’t sound as if he had the temperament that lent itself to throwing refrigerators at angels or trying to kill people with laser beams. I tried to remember if the poor thing had just been terrified and trying to defend itself. No, it had purred. I remember it relaxed and purring one moment and burning lingerie the next.

  Swiftethian hadn’t used the gem on himself. Six charges and he hadn’t used one of them.

  “I think you’re right,” I told Terrell. “The gem may have given him a shit ton of power, but I think it also made him insane.”

  And an insane demon with the power to kill two angels and an ancient demon wasn’t good.

  Chapter 26

  He’s a greed demon. He’ll probably be really sensitive about what he perceives to be insults and brazen about taking anything that catches his eye. Look for thefts of jewelry, expensive cars, money.”

  I paced back and forth, wearing a groove in Wyatt’s already tattered carpet. Fucked if I knew what a greed demon would want.

  “Property?”

  I stopped pacing. “Huh? How do you steal property? Are you suggesting he’ll pick up a house and walk off with it?”

  “No.” Wyatt sighed. “Look, you said he gave the elf a fake deed of trust. If he’s a greed demon, I’m assuming he has real ones stashed somewhere. Let’s say he sees a house he particularly wants. If he’s crazy, he’s bound to go in and kick everyone out. And he’d probably be a lot more violent about it than the elf.”

  “So look for police standoffs, and hostage situations. That would draw a lot of attention to him, but killing two angels kind of did that already.”

  It hit me—what a great way to get Gregory’s attention and draw him in. If Avarnak holed himself up inside the White House, or Graceland, or some rapper’s mansion, it would cause a lot of press. And if he took hostages and started a blood bath, Gregory was sure to come. After killing two of his enforcers, the archangel would hardly leave this task to one of his staff. “Yeah. What’s the most extravagant place you can think of? If you were a greed demon that wanted an awe-inspiring crib, what would you take?”

  “Buckingham Palace? Versailles? That cool hotel in Dubai? The Taj Mahal?”

  “Isn’t that a mausoleum? People don’t really live there, do they? I can’t see a greed demon wanting to snatch some building with a dead woman in it, no matter how pretty it looks.”

  “Okay, so not the Taj Mahal then. Maybe the Trump Tower in New York? You said demons have some weird fascination with Owning Donald Trump’s soul.”

  We did. And it was rapidly coming to my attention that wit
h so many awe-inspiring palaces to take, the best way to find Avarnak was Wyatt and his amazing technical skills. He’d get the news before it hit CNN, and Gregory and I could be there within seconds. What we were going to do once we got there other than try and out-fire-power Avarnak, I had no idea.

  I walked back to my house, once again touching the gem in its pouch under my shirt just to make sure it was still there. Until Avarnak showed his hand, I was in a weird holding pattern. For the first time in months, I found myself with nothing pressing on my to-do list. Yeah, there were still those brownies in Richmond, and that unicorn in Lancaster had proved surprisingly elusive. Actually, I was pretty sure the unicorn was being hidden in a horse stable by a six-year old girl. He’d eventually reveal himself once the parents realized they had an extra stallion—one with a giant horn growing from his head—in the pasture.

  Just thinking about it made me want a unicorn in my pasture. They weren’t exactly friendly toward anyone who wasn’t a virgin, though. Last time I checked, the only virgin in my house was Dalmai, and he was an asshole. The angel might not have manifested any genitals, but I doubted a unicorn would excuse general douchbaggery, even in a virgin.

  I was so busy imagining what a unicorn could do to an angel that I nearly walked into a demon lurking next to the azaleas.

  “Az! You sneaky bitch. How are you? Zalanes said you wanted to see me? Something about buying a melusine?”

  I found myself unable to respond with anything more coherent than a gurgle.

  The demon patted his chest. “It’s me, Orias. You’ve probably never seen this human form before. I just picked it up last year in Venezuela. Pretty hot, huh?” He spread his arms wide and pivoted around, giving me the full view. It was a nice job, although I didn’t often see hot Latin guys walking around in spandex tights and an orange peasant blouse. He looked like he’d escaped from a low budget production of Pirates of Penzance.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed, yanking him back behind the azaleas. “I meant for you to contact me in Hel, not waltz right up to my house like this. Stupid idiot. You killed an angel. Do you want to be dead?”

  Orias looked surprised and rather hurt that I hadn’t been as happy to see him as he was to see me. “Nah. It’s all good, Az. They won’t catch me.”

  Did the angel he killed deliver a forcible blow to Orias’s head before expiring? “What fairy land are you living in? Of course they’ll catch you.”

  “I’ve been to fairy land. It’s where I got the melusine.” Orias grinned, so unusually cheerful for an infernal being. “It’s a total fucking blast there. I can’t understand why the elves hate fairies so much.”

  He was even more of a moron than I remembered. How had this guy managed to kill an angel, especially one powerful enough to be tasked with couriering an artifact?

  “Where’s the Veil, Orias?” I had this idea that maybe I could return the thing after his little joyride, then spirit him off to Hel before the angels caught up with him. Maybe giving the Veil back would mitigate his sentence, or commute it or something.

  “Why? I can help you get a melusine. Or a nymph. Whatever you do, don’t try to grab one of those lion-scorpions. That motherfucker almost ate me.”

  “Give me the damned Veil. Now.” I was getting nervous. Angels popped in and out of my house all the time. The way my luck was going, one would arrive any moment and catch me trying to hide Orias in the shrubbery.

  “I don’t have it.” The demon looked rather pissed. “I hoped they’d let me play with it a bit longer. Fucking elves. Not that I need it. I know where all the gateways are.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. “What do the elves have to do with any of this?”

  Orias wrinkled his nose and raised his eyebrows, as if I were the one lacking in cognitive skills. “The elves. They paid me to steal the Veil thing and gave me an orb that killed the angel. It was quite a lucrative deal, except I’d been promised three months to play with the Veil.” He kicked a toe into the mulch. “Never trust an elf to keep up their end of the deal.”

  “The elves paid you to steal the Veil?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around that. Gregory said they’d used the Veil before to escape their homeland before it went up in a ball of flames, but that was a billion years ago. They’d learned a lot from the angels since then. They could open their own gateways. Elves didn’t need to steal a Veil to travel. And they certainly didn’t need to kill an angel to get it if they did need the Veil. Those angels were so blind to elven misdeeds that they would happily hand over the keys to Aaru if those dudes asked.

  “Yep. I can introduce you to a few of them if you’re looking for work. Or maybe not.” Orias pursed his lips. “They really, really hate you, Az.”

  They did. “What elf paid you to do this?” Maybe this was a low-level elf that couldn’t create gates and wanted the Veil. Or a young one. I thought of the gang of kids that had shot me out of the air. Although how a young or low-level elf would have found the resources to pay Orias, let alone find a weapon strong enough to kill an elf was beyond me.

  Again I got the ‘she’s stupid’ look from the demon. “All the elves. Where have you been? They’ve all joined together into one big mess of elves.”

  “Yes, I know. You must have had some contact, though. I doubt two-hundred-thousand elves showed up on your doorstep to speak to you in unison about a project.”

  “Realsh.”

  I recognized that name. It was the same guy who was supposed to collect my head and give my killer concert tickets. I still had no idea why the elves would want the Traveler’s Veil, but as soon as Gregory and I took care of Avarnak, I’d run over to Hel and get it.

  That sounded so easy. Hundreds of thousands of elves who hated me, a price on my head, a depleted household made up of mostly Lows. Yeah. Easy.

  But in the meantime, I needed to get Orias safely back to Hel. And the one gate I could use to slip demons in and out was being guarded by a stranger. I could teleport him, but I remember Gregory saying that transporting others left a trace. I wondered what the punishment would be for aiding and abetting an angel killer, a thief?

  “So do you want a melusine or not? Cause I’ve got places to go and things to do.”

  Screw it. Orias was an idiot, and the elves were to blame for this crime. Collectively. I didn’t want this demon to pay with his life.

  “Yes, yes I want one. I’ll contact you later with the details. Right now I’ve got to get you out of here and back to Hel before the angels come. Teleportation is no fun, and you’ll probably puke, but it’s better than being dead.”

  Orias backed away, which meant he was out of the bushes and in my driveway, in clear view of any beings, spirit or otherwise, who happened to be looking out one of my windows. “I told you, the angels aren’t going to bother with me. I’m still having fun here. Even without that Veil thing, I’m not ready to go back.”

  There was clearly some disconnect here, some communication error between us. “Why would you believe the angels won’t bother with you? You killed an angel and stole something from them. Do you seriously think they’re going to overlook something like that?”

  The demon flicked his fingers. “They’ve got more important things to do than come after me. They’ll be way to busy chasing dragons and sirens and gargoyles. All the weird shit coming through thousands of gates is going to keep them occupied for hundreds of years, at the very least.”

  How the fuck did he know about all the wild gates re-opening? I hadn’t told anyone in Hel, and I doubted Orias had been in communication with the angels or any of my household this side of the gates.

  “Trust me; they’ll make time. Tell you what, let me take you back to Hel and I’ll let you stay with me in a few thousand years, once stuff settles down.”

  “No! I’m staying.”

  You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to tap dance for you. Yeah, that and a whole lot of other stuff.

  “So Realsh has the Veil? Su
re he wasn’t going to give it to some other elf?” I’d learned my lesson trying to chase down that fucking gem of Gareth’s. Orias might not know, but I figured I’d ask just in case.

  “What’s left of it. Shame, that Veil was pretty cool. I wish they would have let me play with it a bit more before they ripped it in half.”

  Damn. Orias had just signed his own death warrant, or rather Realsh had signed it for him. But this crazy demon’s life expectancy wasn’t foremost on my mind, it was why the elves would pay a fortune to steal something only to destroy it.

  Destroying a magical item had repercussions. Sometimes it was a big bang. Sometimes, like my breaking a wand in Aaru, it resulted in the original magical effect going far and wide. The Traveler’s Veil opened gateways, and suddenly thousands of gateways were ripped open all over the world. I was willing to bet my less-than-considerable fortune on that event coinciding with Realsh tearing the veil in half.

  And now the angels were busy. Too busy to chase after Orias, although I doubted the elves destroyed an artifact just to safeguard the demon they’d paid to steal it. And if the angels refused to partner with demons, it might take them more than a few centuries to clear up the problem. Yep, this would keep the angels busy, this combined with the revolution in Aaru.

  But why did the elves need the angels to be distracted? Then it hit me, and I realized it was all tied together: the gem, The Veil, a nineties grunge band.

  “Take care of yourself, Orias. Try not to get killed, okay?”

  The demon gave me a high five and trotted down my driveway. “You too, Az. You too.”

  Chapter 27

  It wasn’t an hour before Wyatt stood at my front door, a laptop in one hand. “Sam? I think I might have something.”

  Hot damn. I hoped it was Avarnak, because as soon as Gregory and I could take down that greed demon, I was going to start knocking elven heads together with a vengeance. “Where? Did he go for Trump Towers or Graceland?”