“Oh, good.” Grace crossed her arms. “I have to know, did you really think this through? You know what those demons did to our family. Did you think at all about how much this would hurt her?”
I sighed as I slowly withdrew the knife, using my ichor to seal the wound as I went. “I don’t have much of a choice when the Prince of my House tells me I’m in charge of something. Even if I didn’t do the work here, she’d be involved whether she liked it or not.”
“Sure, but you didn’t have to bring the pain to her safe space.” Grace held her hand out. “Give me that. I’ll take care of it.”
I gave her Tink’s knife. “Thanks. She’s really going to flip her shit when the Leviathan liaison shows up.”
“Why? Does she have history with this one?”
“No, but this one’s basically her antithesis. Kyla’s tall, exotic, calm, friendly, and really wants me.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Do you actually think Anna’s so insecure?” I grinned as she walked toward the kitchen with the bloody knife. I turned to head to the den where I had started setting up a workplace when the doorbell rang. I made it to the door first and pulled it open.
A familiar figure smiled at me. “Good afternoon, Baron.”
“Kalil?” I asked. “You’re my liaison? Since when have you been with House Intelligence?” I offered him my hand and we shook firmly. The first time we had met, it had been during a vicious fight against the Choir. He’d been in command of a situation going downhill in a hurry and had kept it from spiraling completely out of control.
He shrugged and pointed to his shoulder. “Took a nasty stab during the war, and didn’t realize the Choirboy laced his sword with holy fire and purity. Didn’t have the time to cut it out, so I let it scar. Went deeper than I thought it would.” I winced. Most of the time, demons could heal perfectly, using our ichor as fuel. Holy fire could leave scars. Angelic purity tended to react unpredictably when mixed with demonic ichor. Sometimes, the reaction was volatile, explosive, and horrific. We only took the risk if the outcome was certain death regardless. “I don’t have full motion and I have to be careful transforming around the scar tissue. Since I’m no longer considered fully combat capable, I got a medical transfer to Intelligence.”
“I bet a human mage could isolate the scars and cut them out,” I said. “Or even just a surgeon who’s familiar with our kind.”
“I’d rather not take any sort of risk with humans,” he said. Something must have changed in my face, because he lifted his hands. “No offense intended to you and your partner, Baron. It’s just the current state of affairs. I don’t know any human surgeons I’d trust my life to.”
I nodded. “I understand. No offense taken. Come on in, and stop calling me Baron. I have a name, remember.”
“Call him an asshole.” Kalil smirked as he stepped into the house. Tink appeared on the balcony overlooking the entryway. “He certainly is one. You’re Kalil? I remember you from First Rev, when that fucker Victor murdered Jase, right?”
“Yes, I was there,” he said. “A pleasure to see you again. Anna, correct?”
“Tink,” I corrected him.
“Shut up, demon. Is your shit all set up in the den?”
“Yeah, I was just about to show him in.”
She scowled down at me. “All right. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I waved at her in acknowledgement and led Kalil to our headquarters. Being incredibly rich, all of the rooms in Tink’s house were enormous. I’d cleared some of the furniture out of the room and pushed the rest to the sides. The centerpiece was a gigantic world map placed over a corkboard. I had already placed pins corresponding to the places where we had spotted House Lucifer survivors. Kalil nodded in approval. “Very old school. I like it.”
“I thought people would get a kick out of it.”
“You have Wi-Fi here, right?” I nodded and he pulled out a laptop. “I’ll VPN into the secure House Intelligence network, then. That’s the easiest way to pull in new data from our field agents.”
“I’ll pretend to know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I just get the monthly e-mail updates.”
Kalil gave me a pitying look. “You’re a halfblood who’s lived more than half his life in the human world during the computer age. I’ve lived through the steam age, and you’re telling me I’m more comfortable with technology than you are?”
“Hey, at least I have a Facebook, right?”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Don’t be mean.”
He sniffed and turned to his laptop. “What’s the wireless password?”
“FUCKDEMONS,” Tink said as she strode into the room. “All uppercase.”
“You should use a more secure and less obvious password,” Kalil said.
“I don’t care,” she said. “So, what’s the first step here? I assume the pin colors mean something.”
“Red is a confirmed Lucifer spotting, yellow is a suspected spotting.” I pointed to a cluster of pins in Europe. “Blue is where their main holdings were. Purple pins are things we think belonged to them, but we don’t have records or confirmation.”
She scowled at the map. “What about their place near here?”
I shook my head. “Temporary, apparently.”
“There goes my first idea. Check out the place where they had Becky on trial. I thought they might have shit lying around there.”
“Not a bad idea, actually,” I said. Kalil looked up at us with some level of interest. “Especially because that’s where we found out about the imp-repulsing whatever.”
“The imp-repulsing whatever,” Tink repeated. “Fucking terrible, demon. Even for you.”
“Well, what would you call it?”
“The imp repulsor.”
“Now you’re just copying my idea.”
“I’m refining it. Problem?”
Kalil cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt, but could you tell me where the bathroom and kitchen are? House Asmodeus will compensate you for use of your house, of course, Anna.”
“Yeah, come on, I’ll show you around and introduce you to my sister.” Tink jerked a thumb over her shoulder and led Kalil out. I picked up a purple pin and stuck it in the map. It was worth checking out. As I recalled, it had been just one building in an office park. Something had come up about the location in the news recently, but I couldn’t clearly remember.
The doorbell rang again before I could search for the answer online. I rushed to answer before Tink got there. As I had anticipated, Kyla had arrived dressed to kill in a sheer blouse and pencil skirt. Her makeup was on point. Honestly, she was hot as hell. “Why, good afternoon, Baron,” she greeted me. “I’m so glad to be working with you.”
She was wearing heels. Tink was going to murder someone. Probably me. “A pleasure as always, Baroness,” I replied, opening the door wide for her. “Please come in.” I wasn’t sure if she was wearing perfume or some sort of pure pheromone cocktail, but either way, she smelled delicious.
Another demon followed her in, a tall and thin man whose eyes bulged out of sunken sockets. “This is my House Intelligence liaison, Baronet Dras,” Kyla said. “Dras, this is Baron Isaiah Bright of House Asmodeus, Gatekeeper, once Lord of Heaven, amongst other titles.”
“Pleasure,” he said in an oddly high-pitched voice. I held back a chuckle as we shook hands.
I showed them to the den and gestured at the map. “Here’s our current information.” I explained the pins and pointed out a few of them in particular. “I’m sure you have your own equivalent, so I’d suggest the first order of business is to compare what we have and consolidate the map.”
“How inefficient,” Dras said with a sniff. “House Leviathan keeps our information in a secure database. We could compare it against yours in an hour or less. I’m surprised your House doesn’t have one already running, with how in love you are with the humans and their toys. Have your intelligence
liaison set one up.”
“Dras,” Kyla said. There was a significant note of warning in her voice. “Isaiah is in charge of this joint operation.”
“For now,” Dras said softly.
I turned to him. His gaze locked on mine and the challenge was clear. My ichor surged with the desire to slap him down. “Do not try my patience, Dras,” I said. “I’ve faced Dukes, Seraphim and Cherubim, and even the Four Horsemen. I’m still here. You aren’t even a gnat in comparison.”
He was the first to look away. Kyla cleared her throat. “Do you have an intelligence liaison from your House yet, Isaiah?”
“I do, and here he is now.” Kalil paused in the doorway, Tink almost hidden behind him. “Baroness Kyla and Baronet Dras of House Leviathan, this is Kalil of House Asmodeus Intelligence. The short one behind him is Annabell Glass, Gatekeeper, freelance Adept mage, owner of this house, and my beloved contract partner.”
“Beloved?” Multiple voices asked at the same time.
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“Watch your figures of speech, demon,” Tink said. Her knife was already clean and she prodded me with it as she walked past. “Or I’ll help you with your figure. You need to lose the gut you’ve been packing on lately. Haven’t been picking up when Becky calls with work, have you? You just sit on the couch watching Netflix with a bag of chips.”
“I just don’t burn off the fat like I should,” I said. “It makes me twitchy.”
“You don’t want to be in shape because you get twitchy. What does that even mean?”
“It means I get twitchy!”
“I’m sorry, did we interrupt a fight already in progress?” Kyla sounded amused. “We can come back later.”
“No, he started one,” Tink snapped.
“Tink, stop being such an angry little fairy. I’d like to be able to finish this job with minimal bloodshed,” I said.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“How am I patronizing you?”
“If you don’t mind,” Dras said, “we’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“Are you in a hurry?” Kyla asked.
He shrugged. “You know how I feel about humans.” The last word dripped with contempt.
Tink tensed. I didn’t even need our bond to tell she was already near her boiling point. I dropped a hand on her shoulder and she glared up at me. I shook my head slightly and she frowned. Plenty of demons didn’t care for humans. Dras seemed to hold more than distaste. If he was a demon supremacist, House Leviathan was sending us a message. I didn’t like it.
While I considered how to deal with the problem, Kalil and Dras had started working together on their laptops, exchanging technical jargon way over my head. I beckoned to Kyla. She raised an eyebrow and stepped over to us. “I know what you’re going to ask,” she said. “And yes, I’m fine with sharing, in all senses of the word.”
Tink sighed. “And I thought this one had a one track mind.”
“Why’d you bring someone like him?” I asked. “I’m not going to play this game, Kyla. He doesn’t like humans. He doesn’t like me. How much of a problem is this going to be?”
“Are you under the impression he’s a minority?” Kyla asked.
“In House Asmodeus, he would be a very small minority.”
“In House Leviathan, he would be in the plurality.”
“What’s your position?”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows for a moment before taking on a more serious expression. “I don’t dislike humans,” she said, turning her head to Tink. “I have many human friends and I enjoy spending time with them and working with them. But, in the end, I would prefer to get away from them as soon as possible. My faction within my House wants demonkind separated from humanity. It would be better for both our races.”
“So I suppose you think our contract is shit,” Tink snapped. Across the room, Kalil and Dras fell silent. “A demon bound to a human stands against everything you believe in, right? Do you think this one is dirty for being a halfblood?”
Kyla held her hands up. “I didn’t mean any offense.” I tried not to grin. Tink wasn’t exactly on target, but this was far too entertaining for me to step in and ruin it.
“Bullshit, skankdemon.” Kyla’s eyebrows flew up again. “You knew you’d be working in the human world with a halfblood, and you have to know enough about him to know he’s contracted to me. You know all of this, and still, you bring along a demon racist. What are you expecting to happen?” Tink’s hand strayed to her knife. “What’s Leviathan’s game here?”
“Is she for real?” Kyla asked me.
“I think you should answer her questions.” At the tone of my voice, I saw Kalil tense and step away from Dras. Tink’s questions had cut all entertainment value from the situation. “I’m sure you could have brought someone more compatible with the situation. Why didn’t you?”
“No, I couldn’t have. It wasn’t my choice,” Kyla said. “Dras was the compromise no one in our House was happy with. The High Prince had to throw his faction a bone in order to allow me to lead this effort.” I looked in his direction and saw Dras staring at Kyla with narrowed eyes. “Annabell, I didn’t mean any offense with my words. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I don’t let personal feelings interfere with my work. I’d appreciate it if you’d take your hand off your weapon, though.”
“What do you think, demon?” Tink asked.
Kyla looked back to me. I stared at her, but she didn’t look away. “I think she’s being honest,” I said. “Her House’s internal politics are a bit more convoluted than Asmodeus’s. Let’s all take a moment to cool down and relax a bit. This situation’s a little tense.”
“And this is why I despise humans,” Dras said. “She speaks as if she’s in charge, as if she has the strength to stand up to us. She’s just a barking bitch with no bite.”
Before I could stop her, Tink slashed a line across her palm with her knife and squeezed her fist shut. Dras transformed from his human to demonic form, growing taller and thinner, arms extending past his waist and long claws snapping out from his fingertips. As he coiled to strike, Tink held a bloody hand up at him. “Don’t move,” she snapped. “I don’t need ichor to blow a hole through your face.”
“Control your pet, halfbreed,” Dras hissed. “Else I cannot speak to her well-being from this point forward.”
“Halfbreed? You’re going there? No, she’s doing this on her own. Even if I could control her, I wouldn’t stop her.” Dras turned his gaze on me and I felt my ichor pulse again in response to his new challenge. Slapping him down hadn’t been enough. “Maybe you should learn proper manners, like not insulting your host in their own home. Maybe you should try turning your hatred of humanity against those who deserve it. Or, maybe you should just get a hole blown through your face. It might improve your looks. Your dating prospects must be pretty dim as they stand right now.”
“Bark louder, halfbreed,” Dras said. “All I hear is yipping. Neither of you scare me.”
“Put up or shut up, Baronet,” I said, emphasizing his lesser title. “Either one of us could take you apart by ourselves. You’re facing both of us. Come on now. Your move.”
His eyes narrowed and for a moment, I thought he would actually make a move. Instead, he relaxed and let his transformation melt back into his human features. His eyes flicked to Kyla and a smirk crossed his face. “Baroness, I didn’t know your affections included animals. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Get out.” Attention flicked back to Tink. Her fingers were still stained crimson and she drew a rune in the air. The Leviathans tensed. I knew the spell she had prepared wouldn’t quite be what they were expecting. “Get the fuck out of my house. Your guest rights are revoked, Dras. Baroness, you’re going to need to order up a new intelligence liaison, unless you want to get the fuck out too, which I wouldn’t mind one bit right now. Either way, this asshole i
sn’t welcome in my home. So turn around and walk out before I throw you out.”
“We will need to move the headquarters, then,” Dras said, flicking his hand toward the table. “You have no authority over me. Learn your place, bitch.”
She wiped her rune away, drew a new one I didn’t immediately recognize, and flicked a finger into it. Magical power hummed and I could feel it resonate throughout the frame of her house. Dras dropped to his knees with a surprised grunt. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure I heard you clearly.”
“Don’t push me any further, bitch, or I’ll let my hellfire do the talking,” he snarled.
I stepped between them. “No, you’re not going to reply with hellfire, not unless you send it right through me, in which case our Houses are going to have some difficulties, since you’ll be going home in a paper bag. Doubt your Princes will be happy.”
A hand landed on my shoulder and pushed me aside. “Enough,” Kyla said. She hadn’t transformed, but her eyes were smoking. Literally. “Dras, you are dismissed. You’re bringing nothing but shame to House Leviathan in front of outsiders. Get out. Crawl back to your masters and tell them you failed to maintain the merest hint of decorum.”
“You cannot dismiss me!”
“Can’t I?” Kyla held her palm out. A sigil of House Leviathan, tattooed on her hand, began to glow red. Blood oozed from one corner of the design. Dras dropped from his knees to all fours. “I said crawl, Dras. Count yourself fortunate I allow you even that much dignity after the insult you paid me.”
Spitting curses, the demon crawled out of the room. Kalil watched with a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. I stared at Kyla as she clenched her jaw. What she had done wasn’t demonic, but a form of human magic. There wasn’t anything familiar about it. When I heard the front door open and close, she closed her fist and shook herself. “You’re a halfblood too, aren’t you?” Tink asked.
“Not quite. I’m one fourth human, my grandfather on my father’s side. It’s funny to say grandfather when he was born before Columbus.”
“If you have human blood, why the bullshit?” Tink asked.
The Demon Behind Me Page 4
