by Sierra Dean
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re dying for me to be right.”
“But by your logic, I’d be a chump for believing you. Which means you’re lying.”
Harold blinked at me a few times as if only just becoming aware of the context of what he’d said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh my God, you’re so bad at this. Are you new? Like, are you a fresh-out-of-the-lakes-of-fire demon? Are you even third hierarchy?”
He crossed his arms and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Now you’re being mean.”
“Let’s circle back to the whole demon-uprising thing. Bullshit?”
“No, I was serious about that.”
I sighed. “Of course you were. Okay, let’s pretend for a minute I believe you and think that the demons will rise up and bring Hell on Earth and all that.”
“You should believe me, because I’m not making it up.”
I waved my hand at him, visually shushing his interruption. “Let’s say I believe you. When might this incredible demonic plan be put into action? You know, so I can add it to my calendar.”
“You’re very saucy for a young woman alone in a room with a demon with no way out.” He stepped closer to me. “Do you think you’re invincible? Because you smell mortal to me, girl.”
It took all my willpower not to step back towards the door. I may have once had supernatural gifts, but now I just had fancy weapons and fancier wits. He could slit me open end to end before I could scream for help, and we both knew it.
But I didn’t budge, and he gave me a nod.
“You must be awfully smart to act so stupid,” he decided out loud.
“Thank you?”
“The uprising is meant to happen after sunset tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I stammered. Geez, these guys sure didn’t waste any time, did they?
“You wanted to know the date, I gave you the date.”
“To be honest, Harold, I was expecting you to tell me the plan would be set into motion on the sixth day of the sixth month in 2066 or something. You know, so I could leave a note for future generations of demon hunters saying, ‘Good luck, suckers.’”
“2066 isn’t that far away. Are you not expecting to be alive?”
“Have you seen the cavalier way in which I treat the sanctity of my own life?” I gestured to the space between us, reminding him how little there was. “I’ll honestly be surprised if I live to see thirty.”
“Good to have realistic expectations.”
“Can we maybe circle back to this whole the-world-is-going-to-end-tomorrow thing? That feels important.”
Harold took a seat, and though he didn’t show signs of discomfort, it was really awkward watching a demon with goat legs try to sit naturally on a little military-grade cot. He sipped his water, his long, pointed fingers wrapping almost double around the bottle.
“The world ending seems extreme. I like to think of it as more a change in management.”
I snorted and gave a sidelong glance to the mirror as if to ask, Can you believe this guy? but of course no one answered or gave any indication of having heard me.
“What’s the plan, then? What makes this attempt better than any others?”
“Vampires,” he said simply.
“Vampires?”
“Heard of them?”
“Har har, smartass.”
“For centuries, vampires wanted nothing to do with demons. There’s an association, historically, that vampires might be a kind of demon, a lesser dilution, and that’s why they need blood, because they can’t feed on souls directly. But regardless of whether or not that’s true, vampires want no part of the kinship conversation. And so for a long, long time the only ones we could make deals with were human. That is until someone on your level decided to make sure everyone knew about vampires. Then they found something they liked even less than demons.”
“What’s that?”
“Humans who know what they really are.”
There was an element of truth to this little speech, which I knew all too well. Vampires believed they were better than humans. This overlooked the fact they were all once humans themselves. They genuinely considered themselves a superior breed, or an evolutionary step towards perfection. I’d heard whispers about the notion that vampires might be demon-kin, but only from Keaty, my old partner. That wasn’t something anyone spoke about in front of a real vampire.
They were sensitive about that sort of thing.
“How are the vampires helping?”
“They used to sit back and let humans do the summonings, which never really went that well, I’m assuming because humans lack the power to forge the circles needed to open proper doorways. But lately vampires have been coming together with some of those humans, and down below this is giving us reason to believe things might actually start working.”
Again I cast a glance over to the mirror, but this time there was nothing amused in my expression. Instead, looking back at me was my own suddenly pale face, reminding me yet again that I was a mortal, playing a game of immortal stakes.
“So vampires are going to help open the doorway to Hell.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
This time he looked towards the mirror. Of course he knew we were being watched. What he might not know was that every single word he said was being recorded to see what kind of wisdom we could glean from it. If any.
“Then what?” he repeated. “Well, Ms. McQueen, the demons come to party.”
Chapter Five
Back on the outside, I cracked open another bottle of water and sat on a little bench a few feet from the holding cell. I kept swallowing until the whole bottle was empty then leaned my head against the wall and took a deep breath.
“Do you believe him?” I asked Tyler.
The tall man nodded gravely. His dark hair was a mess, well outside regulation for a proper dyed-in-the-wool FBI Special Agent. It was sticking up all over the place as if he’d been raking his hands through it nervously while watching Harold and me talk.
Couldn’t blame him. There were a few moments where I had wanted to rip out my own damn hair.
“There’s no value in him making up such a close date,” Emilio said. “It’s too easy to disprove. We could just hold on to him and wait out the day tomorrow, and then we’ve proven he’s a liar. Nah, this has a nasty smack of truth to it, if you ask me.”
That was what I was worried about. Emilio was incredible at picking out lies. He had to be. I had never asked him how many interrogations he’d led before coming to the FBI, when he’d been a black ops mercenary, but I knew he was a man who had drawn blood in the name of getting to the truth.
We were all in agreement that Harold was telling us the truth. The real question was what we should do about it. Technically we were sitting on some pretty monumentally important information. Like, pull-out-a-big-red-phone-and-dial-your-direct-line-to-the-President important.
But I wasn’t sure we had the time to put this in the hands of bureaucrats. If vampires were helping demons, then yes, there were some substantial diplomatic concerns that the vampire council would need to address with the government. Right now, though, we needed to keep a door shut.
Did the government really need to know?
Tyler was giving me the look that told me he was reading my mind, something he did often enough now to make me wonder if he had secretly implanted a chip in me to literally let him read my mind.
Fuck you, tall boy, I thought at him.
If he heard me, he didn’t even flinch.
“We have to report this, Secret,” he said instead. “You know we do.”
“Okay, but hear me out. What if we didn’t report it until tomorrow?”
Emilio and Tyler exchanged concerned glances before turning back to me. It was Emilio who asked, “What do you think you can accomplish in a few hours that the U.S. Government can’t? Actually, what is it that you’re planning th
at you don’t want the government to know about?”
“I would like the government to pretty much pretend I don’t exist, at all times.”
“Everyone would like that,” Tyler replied.
“I want to take Harold back out and have him show me where this is going down. And then I want to stop it.”
Tyler’s mouth opened, then closed, and he stared at me a moment before trying again. “You want me to let you take a captive demon back into the world.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not, you’re out of your mind.”
“He’s my demon,” I countered.
“He’s not a stray puppy,” Tyler shot back. “You don’t own him. You don’t control him. He’s an eight-foot-tall killing machine who will likely lead you directly into a trap, and you want me to sign off on that like it’s any other job. No. Not in a million years.”
“Technically, I have as much authority in this unit as you do,” I reminded him.
“Provided you’re using your position in the office to help society. I have the ability to revoke all your privileges if I think you’re going to go off half-cocked and put people’s lives at risk. Taking a demon out for a joyride sounds pretty fucking risky to me.”
“Full-cocked risky,” Emilio said in agreement.
“It’s not fair when you two team up like this, you know.”
The sound of a voice clearing brought the three of us back to attention, reminding us we weren’t in our own private office but rather the lab, which was not our domain.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your little ménage spat or whatever this is, but I have a suggestion,” Lily said.
We waited for her to speak, but she left a nice, long, dramatic pause for effect before saying, “Bevin has developed something that would theoretically take the dampening effects of the holding cell out into the world.”
“How theoretical are we talking?” Tyler asked.
“We haven’t had an opportunity to field test it yet, for obvious reasons, but we’ve had positive results in the lab. I feel reasonably certain Secret wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“Secret is always in danger,” Tyler told her. “It’s the general public I’m worried about.”
“Your concern for my safety is touching.”
“My concern for everyone else’s safety because of you is way more of a realistic worry than anything actually happening to you.”
It was sort of a backhanded way of saying he knew I could take care of myself, so I was just going to accept the compliment and run with it.
“Explain this device,” Emilio prompted, reminding us once again that we were on Lily’s turf and she was trying to help us.
She offered a thin smile. “It’s an adjustable collar, one Secret would have a remote detonator for if she thought things were going to get out of control.”
“Detonator?” I didn’t like where this was going.
“Yes, it’s a collar bomb.” She waved to Bevin, who brought over the hefty-looking metal contraption. It was thick pewter and had markings on the inside that were similar to those all over the holding cell. Lily pointed to the markings. “These will keep his powers dampened while you’re in the field, so he can’t possess anyone or summon any other demons to him. This…” she tapped a trigger on the outside with a green LED light on it, “…this is the kill switch. The handler would be carrying a remote unit that would allow them to engage a contained bomb within the unit. No harm to anyone nearby, but it will blow shrapnel inwards, severing the head almost instantly.”
“Almost.”
Lily gave another nod, clearly not picking up on my discomfort. “Yes. It’s quite a clean sever. No collateral damage.”
I took the unit from her, surprised to find it much lighter in my hands than it appeared. “If he agrees to wear this, you guys will let me out in the field with him?”
Tyler looked as if he wanted to argue, but he needed to remember Harold had come to us willingly. Demon or not, I didn’t consider him to be a prisoner. Yes, he’d been hunting for a new body when I found him, and had I caught him in the act of possessing someone, we would have exorcised him and killed him. But for the time being he wasn’t the enemy and seemed genuinely interested in helping us out. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.
Look at me, trusting demons. If I still had a therapist, I bet they’d be really proud of me.
“Yes, if he agrees to wear the collar, you can go out with him. With a team following you and with the explicit expectation that if anything goes wrong, you are triggering that bomb. Understood?” Tyler’s expression was dead serious, and for once I knew it would be a good idea not to test his patience.
“All right, we have a deal.”
Chapter Six
There are moments in everyone’s life where they have to ask themselves, “What did I do wrong to get here?”
I have those moments a lot, and I’m a big-enough person to admit that what’s gone wrong is usually my fault. I take risks, and they often pan out well, but the times they don’t, things go very sideways.
So it was I found myself in a back alley a mile from Universal Studios, sitting next to a demon, who had tried to kill me twenty-four hours earlier, waiting for the world to end.
Harold, to his credit, had been willing to wear Lily’s collar, which made me wonder what was up with him. What kind of demon just let himself be hampered like that? I’d never agree to wear a collar that rendered me helpless.
He was also gigantic and had claws that could gut a pig, so even without demonic powers he still didn’t have much to fear from the human world.
“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked for the dozenth time.
Harold hefted a big sigh. “Yes.”
“How can you tell?”
“How can I tell where the gates of Hell are? How can you tell where your front door is?”
“When you ask it like that, it sounds stupid.”
“Stupid questions deserve to be called stupid.”
Man alive, demons were the worst. I’d spent years working with stuck-up vampires and run-wild werewolves, and the pull-your-hair-out fae, but I was making an executive call. Demons sucked more than any of them.
Self-righteous, body-snatching pricks.
“Shouldn’t this be a bigger deal? If tonight’s the big night, wouldn’t this be the Coachella of demon events?”
“Coachella is the Coachella of demon events. It even has Hell in the name, come on.”
I take it all back. I loved this guy.
Of all the things I had missed thanks to my nocturnal vampire lifestyle—brunch, tanning, stores that closed by six—one of the things I did not miss was music festivals.
Desmond had taken me to one in my first year of being a human, and I hated everything about it. The music was barely audible, the guests were barely dressed, and there were tents where you could have someone spray gold paint on your face for about two hundred dollars.
It was awful, and I loathed every minute.
Much like sitting around a back lot waiting for a bunch of demons or vampires to maybe, possibly, show up.
I picked up my plastic bag of Fuzzy Peach candy and chewed thoughtfully on one of the candies, looking at the blank space in front of us.
“To answer your question,” he said. “The rest of us don’t need to be here for this part. When it opens, we know. When it opens, everything begins. To be here would be to be in the way, and no one wants to be the one responsible for messing things up. The ones who arrive will be those making the sacrifice. Once the gate is open, there will be plenty to see.”
“Oh.” I offered him a Fuzzy Peach, and he took it. We silently munched on our sour candies, waiting.
“Has this ever worked before?” I asked.
“A couple times. Unfortunately the openings are tenuous because of the weakness of those opening them, and those who part the gates are often unprepared for what happens. They fail to keep things
open for long enough, so you get some pandemonium, but it rarely does any lasting damage.”
“So more like Heck on Earth instead of Hell on Earth.”
“You are a very frustrating woman.”
I grinned at him. “You’re going to fit in great with this team.”
“That would be nice,” he said almost wistfully.
“Why are you helping us, anyway? Just last night you were out hunting for a new hot bod to wear, I have a hard time believing you just switched sides like that.” I snapped my fingers.
“It’s not a switch, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to go back to hell. I was looking for a new body to stay here. And I’m going to be honest, even though most demons love to talk about Hell on Earth, the idea of it happening isn’t all that appealing to me. I like Earth just the way it is. The food in incredible and the TV shows are awesome, and frankly the idea of Hell two-point-oh replacing marathons of Orange is the New Black doesn’t sound that nice to me.”
“You’re helping us so you can keeping binge-watching Netflix and eating at In-N-Out?”
“More or less.”
“You know, that might be the most convincing thing you’ve said to me since we met.”
“It’s probably the most honest thing I’ve said since we met. I lied earlier. I have heard of you, you know.”
“Aww, you pretended you hadn’t. Trying to keep my ego in check?” I turned towards him and had to repress a giggle to see him crammed so tightly into the front seat of my car. It might have been a big SUV under normal circumstances, but this hardly qualified as normal circumstances.
“Yes, my kind know about you. The woman who killed Mayhew. The woman who had the Oracle at her beck and call. The one who died but was given another chance at life. It’s the sort of thing that gets around.”
“I wouldn’t say I had Calliope at my beck and call.”
Calliope, better known as the Oracle, was a half-fairy, half-god who had a side hustle where she provided blood to newborn vampires to keep them from attacking humans. Now, more than ever, business was booming.
