Page 4 of The Morning Star
He ignored me. “The humans are very supportive of our assistance here, and have enthusiastically agreed to modify their rule of law to our own and to allow us final say on any new regulations—”
“Because you’re a powerful, glowing, winged being,” I countered. “They’re going to agree to anything you say while you’re standing in front of them, but trust me they are going to not be happy to be subject to angelic rule of law. We need to be the ones supporting their laws, not the other way around.”
“I agree,” Nyalla said. “Angels can’t rule by intimidation. And angels can’t assume that just because humans agree with the rules you put forward, that they can or will follow them. Laws that are developed with human input are more likely to gain buy-in.”
Whoa. Nyalla was really getting into this whole Ruling Council thing. And I liked how she was able to argue with Gabe in a way that had him actually considering her point of view—something he rarely did with me.
Gabriel shot her a tired glance then rubbed a hand through his hair. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll go back to them and start again with something more collaborative, even though in the end, we need to do what we feel is necessary to move human evolution in the correct direction.”
I folded my arms across my chest and sat back in my chair with a sniff. This was so not going to work. Eventually the humans would chafe under the scrutiny of the angels, then the shit was going to hit the fan. Some savvy demon should go behind Gabe’s back and offer a separate deal with these heads-of-state. I’d bet after a few years of their winged dictators, they’d be jumping at a chance to partner with the demons for a coup.
Gabe whacked his little gavel on the table again. “That’s the last item on the agenda today, then. Meeting adjourned to reconvene in two days.”
We were supposed to be having these meetings weekly at this point, more often if something came up—and something always seemed to come up. Everyone got to their feet and teleported off, Gabe transporting Nyalla as he’d taken to doing lately. In less than a minute, the only two in the room were Gregory and me. He said nothing. I said nothing. He’d voted against me before in these meetings. Honestly, he seemed to vote against me more often than with me. I don’t know why this time it bothered me so much, but it did. I was tempted to just go back to my house without a word, but I couldn’t do that. Outside of these stupid meetings, we spent more time apart than together. Even as hurt and angry as I was, I longed for his company.
“You coming back to my house?” I asked, still not looking at him.
“Do you want me to?”
I swallowed the nasty reply that formed in my head and tried to remember how important it was to steal whatever moments we could together. “Yes, I do.”
“Are you going to try to put my head in the oven?”
I’d threatened to many times. There was an edge of humor to his words that would not have been there even a year ago. I had to clamp my lips together to keep from smiling. Yes, I wanted to spend time with him, but I was still angry.
“No, and I promise I won’t try to stab you, or hit you with a blender either.”
I felt the tentative touch of his spirit-self. “Then let’s go.”
Like before I’d gotten my wings and could teleport myself, he gathered me into his arms, crushing me against him and transported us both into my kitchen. The feel of him against me was like a balm on my hurt feelings, but before I could let this go I needed to air it out, so I pulled away from him and yanked a mug from my cupboard.
“I’m not happy with you,” I told the archangel, reinforcing my displeasure by filling a cup with coffee and not making one for him. “We’re supposed to have each other’s back.”
He sighed. “I have risked my own personal agenda and my position among the angels to ‘have your back’ more times than you’ll ever know. I can’t support you in this one, beloved. I can’t. The timing isn’t right.”
I glared at him over the rim of my coffee cup as I sipped it. No. Still not giving him any. No coffee. No sex. He wasn’t getting any of those Utz crab chips I’d bought specifically for him either.
“And now you’re going to be even more angry with me,” he continued, “because I’m about to tell you something in complete honesty that you won’t like. I want a united angelic host once more. I want the demons to live in harmony among us, whether that’s here or in Aaru, but right now it would be a disaster if we tried to implement this thing you’re proposing.”
“Because…?” I waited for the part where I got even more pissed off.
“You’re not in charge. You can’t control the Ancients or the other demons, which means you cannot enforce any rule of law we agree upon.”
“I’ve killed demons. I’ve killed Ancients. I’ve even killed angels,” I sputtered. He was right, I was pissed.
“One on one, you have. Or maybe a few at a time with your Low army and a few mercenaries you bribed to temporarily support you. It’s not enough, Cockroach. You need to lead Hel. They need to respect and follow your rules and directives.”
“We’re demons. We don’t follow rules,” I argued.
“Basic rules. Or we’re never going to reconcile. The Angels of Order for the most part are willing to bend, to meet in the middle. Aaru as my witness, I have and I was the most rigid among them, even more so than Gabe. Your demons and Ancients need to follow some basic rules, but you can’t even guarantee that. The minute we open the gates wide and allow them to hold a portion of the human world, all chaos will break loose, and spread like a plague across the world, and you’re not strong enough to reign it in.”
I put the coffee cup down with a thump and looked at the counter, too hurt to meet his eyes.
“Cockroach.” His voice was gentle and I felt the touch of his spirit-self as well as his hand on my arm. “I hope that you will be strong enough eventually. You’re young. You’ve not been the Iblis for long. I know you want change, but wait until you’re ready to support it before diving in like this. Wait to make sure this is a successful endeavor and not one that sets us all back millions of years.”
“But I have the Ruling Council at my back. Enforcing this, supporting it… It wouldn’t just be me. This would be a joint effort.” My voice was husky, and far from confident. He didn’t have faith in me. Gregory had been hounding me since I’d gotten the sword to get control over Hel and the demons, and I’d pushed back because how he’d envisioned my rule as the Iblis wasn’t how I’d envisioned it.
Actually, I had no idea how to envision it. How does an imp rule? Chaos and trickster antics on a large scale wouldn’t move us in the direction we needed to go, but I wasn’t a leader. I wasn’t an organizer. Since the day I’d been formed, I’d felt different from the other demons—disconnected. I’d been focused on survival in a world where the only one you could truly count on was yourself. How was I to take almost a thousand years of life in near-anarchy and come out of that a leader?
