Page 18 of The Morning Star
“And whose household is Caramort in?”
“No one’s.”
He wasn’t lying. Was this guy freelancing, or perhaps Caramort loaned him out to some Ancient? I remembered the conversation I’d had with Mestal a few months back. He’d mentioned an army of demons, but I’d assumed he’d been mistaken, that the rumor mill had turned the army Remiel and the other Ancients had put together to take Aaru and confused it with one that was supposed to come here. But maybe there were two armies, and two Ancients with very different agendas.
“Why are you here? Why are you in Seattle, and who is having you lure enforcers into a trap?”
Something flickered in the dark recesses of the demon’s beady little eyes. It was fear—there, then gone and replaced with defiance.
“I’m here on vacation. That’s it. A demon has a right to vacation. I don’t care what title you’re using, or what fucking sword you’re carrying, you’ve got no business stopping any demon from doing whatever the fuck he wants.”
I moved in closer. “Actually I do. And if I tell you to keep your ass in Hel, your buttocks better be on the other side of the gate, or it’s you who is going to end up a pile of sand on the pavement.”
He shivered. “You can’t do that. Not many angels can do that. Not many Ancients can do that. It isn’t something an imp can do, wings or not.”
I revealed those wings and spread them wide. “Try me, fuckface. Now once more, who had you lure that enforcer? Who killed him and the others?”
Hate filled his eyes and he twisted his weird snaky mouth up into a sneer. “He’ll kill you. Sword, title, doesn’t matter. He’s the only one we’ll follow. He’ll lead us all out of Hel and we’ll sweep through this world, taking whatever we want. It will be ours. No more angels trying to kill us. No more rules about where we can go. We’ll kill the angels, do whatever the fuck we want to the humans and elves. We’ll sit on a throne here. Demons will finally take their rightful place.”
Fucking idiot. He was a tool, and if he didn’t realize that, then he’d be in for a big shock when one day he found himself dead on the floor, no longer useful. “I’m glad you’ve got these dreams of world domination, buddy. Sounds fun and all that. Maybe I’ll join you. So who is this asshole who is leading you out of Hel like he’s fucking Moses? Which Ancient is it?”
“He’ll kill you.” The demon grinned. “Maybe he’ll let me kill you. I’d like that.”
“Who?” I insisted, stepping back to wiggle the sword in his tail once more.
The demon’s head suddenly toppled from his body, a spray of red bursting from his neck as his body slid to the ground. I stared at the crumpled, bleeding form in amazement, then down at the head with its mouth still open mid-sentence, eyes staring blankly ahead.
Then I looked at Gimlet, right behind where the demon had just been standing, a shiny axe-looking thingie with an insanely long handle in his hands.
“What the fuck did you just do?” I’ll admit there was more shock in my voice than anger. I’d honestly forgotten about the Low. Creeping up and whacking this demon’s head clean off his body wasn’t something I’d ever imagined Gimlet doing.
“A thank-you wouldn’t be out of place, you know. I did just save your life.”
My mouth dropped open. “You…saved…? We were talking. I was getting information from him. I had the motherfucker’s tail pinned to the asphalt. He wasn’t going to get away, and he sure as fuck wasn’t attacking me.”
Gimlet blinked his bulging yellow eyes and reached up a fat finger to scratch at his pockmarked nose. “You sure? ’Cause it looked to me like he was about ready to kill you.”
“I had him fucking pinned with my sword,” I shouted.
The Low looked down at the dead demon, whose tail was still pinned to the pavement with my sword. “Well, yeah. Now I see that. Couldn’t see it from behind him. He’s a tricky bastard, you know. I really did save your life.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you didn’t know him?”
Gimlet shrugged. “I don’t. But I know a tricky bastard when I see one, and that demon is tricky. Was tricky. He’s not tricky now because I killed him.”
He had, lopping the fucker’s head off before the demon had time to safeguard his spirit-self. Nothing had exploded, so I assumed whatever energy the demon had been carrying, it either had been sadly depleted by his activities today, or my sword had absorbed it all. Probably the latter. Or…
“Where did you get the lance-axe thing?” I asked Gimlet. As far as I knew only Gregory’s and my weapons were sentient, but there were still a whole lot of angel-made swords that were a fuck-ton more lethal than normal human ones. It wasn’t a stretch to think that Gimlet had managed to come across an equally powerful…thing.
Gimlet drew himself up to his full five-foot-nothing height and glared. “It’s a bardiche.”
“Fine. Where’d you get the brioche?”
“Bardiche,” he snapped. “It’s shorter than other polearms, but still is a two-handed weapon. Typically found in Eastern Europe and Russia as early as the fourteenth century, it was more commonly used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The shorter length meant it could not only be used as a midrange weapon, but a close range one as well. Unlike the glaive…”
My eyes glazed over, much like the dead demon’s, while Gimlet went on and on about bladed weapons and beheadings and some Ivan the Terrible dude, who actually sounded pretty interesting. If he was still around, I’d need to look him up. Any guy saddled with the nickname of “Terrible” was someone I wanted to know. Finally, Gimlet paused to take a much-needed breath and I was able to interrupt him.
“Where the fuck did you get it? The bard-itchy. Where did you get it?”
