Page 19 of The Morning Star
He winced. “Bardiche. There’s a medieval weapons exhibit in a gallery on Spring. Or was it Madison? Yeah, I think it was Madison. I was running, trying to catch the demon, and saw it. Thought I might need a weapon, since I’m a Low and not really equipped to be fighting a fire demon.”
“And you knew to come back here, how?” I was relieved that the bardy-thing was just a badass human weapon and not anything angelic. Especially not anything that might be an artifact with weird, frightening, unexpected side effects of use.
He tilted his head and regarded me with those repulsive, bulging eyes. “Figured since I hadn’t caught up with the demon, that he’d gone the other way, so I backtracked. Figured you could use some help. I mean, you’re just an imp, not much better equipped to take down a mid-level demon than I am.”
I gave him a hard look. “I’m the Iblis. I’ve got the sword.”
He glanced at the sword. “That doesn’t make you the Iblis.”
This guy really got on my nerves. “Yes, it does.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He shrugged. “But if you think it does…more power to you, imp.”
Fuck this Low. Then I thought of all the times the sword had abandoned me, when it hadn’t come when I wanted it or when it had come as something completely useless. I’d still been the Iblis even without the fucking sword. It wasn’t the sword. It wasn’t the spot on the Ruling Council. It was something else. I just couldn’t figure out quite what the something else was.
Chapter 6
I sat in my living room, half-empty pizza boxes and bottles of beer everywhere. One of the Lows belched, and the sound was loud enough to nearly rattle the windows. Lux clapped his hands and squealed. The others cheered. A few patted the Low on the back, their smiles full of admiration. Two pounds of somewhat squashed salmon hadn’t gone far, and I had a dozen demons to feed, so I’d ordered delivery while sharing the fish with Gimlet, as promised. Thankfully the pizza shop also had cookies to add to our order.
“Nice one,” I congratulated the little burping guy, pulling Lux onto my lap out of range of the Xbox controllers. “And now back to the issue at hand.”
“The demon army thingie. Lots of dead angels. And the Ancient who is killing enforcers and has a faked energy signature that is similar to what Samael’s is rumored to be.” Snip beamed, proud that he’d been able to follow the conversation so far and actually retain it more than five minutes. That’s more than I could say for most of the rest of them who were already discussing a bet over who could eat all of the spices in my kitchen cabinet and not puke.
“Samael,” Lux intoned.
“Yes. Your Uncle Samael, who is probably dead and is most definitely not running around killing Grigori enforcers.” I shifted Lux on my lap and handed him my beer. The kid liked beer, and I needed him busy so I could focus.
“First thing I want to find out is about any possible plot to kill angels,” I told the Lows, raising my voice to be heard over the spice bet and Lux’s noisy slurping. “A whole lot of angels have died recently—burned, run over, exploded, cut up to bits. That sort of thing.”
Gimlet laughed. “Well, they’re not real smart about things here in the human world. I saw one stuck in an elevator a few weeks ago. Guy couldn’t figure the buttons out, and every time the door opened he waited so long to get out that it nearly closed on him. And then there was the one trying to cross the highway. It was like that Frogger game. Remember that game?”
None of the Lows remembered that game, but they all stared with admiration at Gimlet, awed by his extensive knowledge and experience in the human world. Those Lows that lived long enough had saved for centuries to afford a brief trip here to vacation. And most of them didn’t live to return to Hel.
“Then there was the angel who fell down the escalator at Macy’s.” Gimlet doubled over in laughter. “His robe got caught and he nearly strangled to death. Some of them are walking around in robes. Can you believe it? Robes. Like a damned Renaissance painting.”
I needed to regain control of the derailed conversation.
“I’m getting the details on the deaths, and there’s a good chance, as Gimlet alluded, that they’re strictly accidental. Just in case they’re not, I need to know if there are any rumors in Hel of demons killing angels. If this is the work of a demon, or a group of demons, someone’s bragging about it.”
“And collecting the bounty,” Snip piped up. “There’s a big bounty on angel wings. Not that I’m in any position to be collectin’ on that.”
I jerked my head around to stare at him in shock, nearly dumping Lux on the floor in the process. Bounty? What bounty? What the fuck was going on in Hel behind my back?
“Not going to get myself dead trying to take out an angel, you know,” Snip added. “Besides, I’m…uh, I’m kind of attached to an angel and she wouldn’t approve.”
That elicited a whole bunch of hoots and lewd gestures from the other Lows. Snip turned bright red. Lux paused drinking beer to take it all in, then with a disgusted snort turned back to his Bud Lite.
“I’m not gonna be killing angels either,” Barf added. “Rather be fucking them. Think I’ll ever fuck an angel? Any of them? One of those gate guardians, maybe? That one in Columbia is kinda hot.”
“Don’t count on it,” Snip told him, bristling at Barf’s comment. “You’d have to work pretty hard to convince one of them to fuck you, and we all know how you feel about work.”
Barf pursed his lips. “I might actually work if it meant I’d get to fuck an angel.”
“Guys!” I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled to gain their attention, trying once more to redirect them. “Bounty? Who is offering a bounty on angel wings? And who has been collecting on that bounty?”
There was a buzz of conversation between the Lows. The consensus was that no one knew who was offering the bounty. It seemed to be some generally known thing. Since none of the Lows was about to attempt to take on an angel, regardless of the profit, none of them had bothered to find out who was actually paying.
“Caramort, Basilisk, and Popiel claim they killed angels,” Snip said. “Course, they might be lying.”
