Page 63 of The Morning Star
Oma was ancient, with the oddly powerful magic that made dwarves ideal caregivers for demon and angel young. She’d been that wacky old lady who’d lived near my childhood home and who was just as likely to invite a young demon in for a bowl of soup as she was to chase them off her property with her metal-tipped staff. I’d gone to her for advice many times over the last few centuries. When she deigned to give it, that advice was usually so symbolic and vague as to be practically useless, but still I went to her.
This time I wasn’t here for advice, though.
“He’s inside,” Oma told me, inclining her head toward the door.
I edged past her and found Criam sitting at the wooden table, an empty bowl in front of him. He looked up at me in relief.
“What did she give you?” I nodded toward the bowl.
“Some spicy stuff with fish. My mouth is numb. It may have been poisoned.”
Criam was just as paranoid as he’d always been. I sat down across from him and pushed the bowl aside.
“If it was poisoned, you’d already be dead. You should be flattered. She doesn’t feed anyone she doesn’t like.”
“Well, I’m more scared than flattered, but okay.” Criam shifted in his seat, sending a wary glance toward the door. “I have information to give you.”
Well, duh. That’s why we were here, having this stealthy meeting with Oma attentively standing guard. And peeling garuat roots.
“Doriel says that Samael is livid that he lost LA, but he’s holding back because he doesn’t know how close the alliance is between the angels and the dragons. The fact that the dragons left the area and haven’t pursued Samael and his army northward leads him to believe the alliance was temporary and that the dragons may no longer be a threat.”
Ugh. That meant our brief cease-fire was most definitely going to be brief.
“We’ve got them hemmed in tight,” I told the demon. “They’re not getting out without a fight.” The only problem was that although Samael and his army were contained in a section of the Pacific Northwest, so were a whole lot of humans. In a siege situation, we’d just wait them out, but we’d lose human sympathy if we didn’t make any attempt to rescue those caught in the demon-held areas. And once Samael realized that and started killing humans en masse, our human support would vanish. Long-term, that would hurt us. And if I couldn’t find a way to weaken Samael’s forces, not having humans on our side could hurt us in the short-term as well.
“He plans to push through the Sierra Nevadas in the next few days. The mountainous area will be hard to defend, and once he can get enough demons through, they’re going to launch a two-pronged attack. Two groups will double around and attack the angels from both the front and the back. Others will spread out and perform guerilla-style attacks in heavily populated human areas.”
I grimaced. We’d be called upon to help the humans, who would see us as being unable to keep them safe. We’d lose their confidence and have to choose between defending ourselves from attacking demons, keeping the majority of them contained in the Pacific Northwest, and helping the humans. There just weren’t enough angels to do all that. That fire demon in Seattle had been right. This was all going to come down to a numbers game, and right now, Samael had the numbers.
Gah, I sucked at this. I wasn’t a military strategist. This was the sort of thing that went on during the war, the sort of thing the Ancients who’d been Samael’s generals knew how to do. I had archangels who knew what the fuck they were doing, and I had Doriel, a seasoned leader, on the inside, but would that be enough?
“Tell Doriel to hold her position, and let me know if anything changes,” I told Criam. “We’re going to make sure Samael’s army doesn’t get through the mountains. When I say go, I’ll need her to bring her household up around the back of his forces, basically doing the exact same thing he’s trying to do to us.”
If she could close that gap, we’d have the werewolves reinforce her line and make sure her ass wasn’t hanging out unprotected. There were quite a few shifters that made their home in the Pacific Northwest, and they were just waiting for our call to action. Or rather, waiting for Ahia’s call to action.
Criam nodded and got to his feet, his expression grim. “This might be a long-haul sort of thing, you know. If any of those demons break out, or if any of the other gates fall, or even if Samael decides he’s going to wait it out in a siege, this could drag out for thousands of years.”
Which was why we needed a quick, hard, decisive victory to show the Ancients and the demons following this fake-Samael that he was completely full of shit. I didn’t want his army dead, I wanted them to switch allegiances to me, and proving that I could do this was a big step in gaining the loyalty of those Ancients and demons.
I waited for the other demon to leave, then thanked Oma for her help and flew to Dis on the wing. It would have been quicker to teleport, but at a time where I needed the denizens of Hel to view me as their Iblis, a winged presence sent the right message.
Once there, I went straight to Remiel.
Chapter 20
I’d gotten back from a tense meeting with Remiel and promptly messaged Gregory with my new intel. He was strengthening the forces guarding the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but doing it in a stealthy sort of way so that Samael might think we were a bit short on wings in that spot. Not so obvious that he’d be suspicious, but just lax enough for him to make his move right where we wanted him. All we needed to do now was wait, so I settled in for some much-needed R&R while Lux and Nyalla were visiting Harper and Austin in West Virginia.
And what better rest and relaxation than crunchy snack food eaten in bed with a cold beer in hand?
I was in my bedroom, eating Cheetos and drinking beer when Snip arrived, Gimlet in tow. The pair of Lows waltzed right on in without even knocking, climbing up on the end of the bed and eyeing the Cheetos.
I pulled the bag away from their covetous gaze. “Knock, guys. I could have been in here fucking or something. I’m the Iblis. I at least deserve some privacy in my own damned bedroom.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing you fucking.” Snip craned his neck to better see the bag of snacks. “Last time I checked, you didn’t mind anyone seeing you fucking either. Are those Cheetos?”
“Yes. And no, you can’t have any.”
He was right about me and the fucking, but Gregory tended to be a bit of a prude when it came to doing it in front of an audience. Well, except for baby angels. Evidently it was okay to angel-fuck in front of them, just not demons, and especially not Lows.
