Page 33 of The Morning Star
“Where did this come from?” I shoved the missive at the Low.
His brow creased. “I don’t know, Mistress. Where did you find it?”
“On my dining room table.” I lifted my head to include all the Lows who had gathered in the main room. “Someone delivered this. I need to know who.”
There was a buzz as all the Lows conferred. “Mistress, no stranger entered the house. The note was not on the table while we were there taking care of Lux. It must have arrived after you did.”
Could someone have teleported into my home and in a split second, left the note before teleporting out? I couldn’t imagine that happening without my sensing it, or Nyalla’s sensing it. Which meant that one of the Lows had deposited the note on his way out.
Which meant one of my Lows was a traitor. And I had a good idea who too.
I folded the parchment and stuck it in my pocket. At least I knew who was behind the angel deaths as well as the enforcer ones. And I knew what his endgame was. Now I just had to stop it. Myself. Because I didn’t want Gregory or any of the archangels to have to be the hand that killed their brother.
Yeah, I was an imp, but I’d seen through the threats in that note. If Samael wanted the sword back and had been the same archangel he’d been before the fall, all he would have had to do was extend his hand and call it. If he could, he would have already had the thing in hand. Instead he wanted to lure me in either to kill me in an attempt to regain the sword, or to use me as leverage to lure in his siblings. Neither was going to work, because like everyone else he had grossly underestimated me. I’d face him. And I’d beat him, because I was an imp.
And more than that, I was the Iblis.
Chapter 10
“This is…” Nyalla grimaced and slid the parchment across her bedspread to me. “This is disturbing.”
“You can’t tell Gabe,” I warned her. “I don’t want any of them to know about this yet. Gregory already suspects because the dead enforcers bore an energy trace that was similar to Samael’s. He wanted to keep that quiet. I want to keep this quiet.”
She nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“Wait until he summons me, then come crawling like a beggar on my knees and kill his fucking ass, that’s what.”
“Good. And Lux?”
I’d told her about Remiel as well. “That Ancient is getting him over my dead body. I can’t afford to antagonize him with all this shit going on right now, though. If I fail to kill Samael and this comes down to war, I’ll need all the other Ancients behind me.”
“So?” She glanced worriedly toward her door. Lux was downstairs with some milk and oatmeal, watching a cartoon about teenage superheroes cohabitating in a building built like a giant T.
“So I lie. I’ll find out why he wants Lux, then prevaricate like a motherfucker. Wait until after I feel better able to take Remiel on, then let him know that he’s never getting Lux back. Hopefully he’ll accept that, because I really don’t want to try my luck in killing two powerful Ancients back-to-back like this.”
Nyalla nodded and glanced at the door once more. “Let me know how I can help. I better get down there before Lux decides to get himself more oatmeal. He’s not very good at boiling water.”
Thankfully the angel was very good at repairing scalded skin, although he’d made quite a huge fuss about burning himself. Honestly, I think part of that fuss was so he could get a chance to snuggle up to Nyalla’s boobs again. Gabe better watch out, or he was going to be shoved aside for a golden-haired infant with some pretty smooth moves.
“Sam!” Nyalla called from the stairs. “Snip is here with a guest?”
Oh fuck. Doriel. With the note and Remiel’s message, I’d forgotten her visit was today.
I hotfooted it down the stairs in enough time to see Doriel walk into my home, escorted by Snip. She was in a different female human form, this one with inky skin and a cap of buzz-cut hair. Decorative scarring lined her collarbone and her cheekbones and the piercing she had in her lower lip dangled a tiny gold bead. I’m not sure when or where she’d acquired this form, but the human woman she’d Owned was over six feet tall with the sort of graceful musculature that could just as easily outrun a small car as snap a telephone pole in half.
I’d felt her energy from the hallway and winced. No wonder the Ancient didn’t make a habit of leaving Hel. Every angel in her general vicinity would probably know she was here. If she hadn’t come in under my protection, Grigori enforcers would have been on her like flies on shit. And while I’m pretty sure the Ancient could take on pretty much any angel thrown at her, being constantly attacked wasn’t a great way to start a vacation.
Well, unless you were a warmonger, that is. Doriel wasn’t a warmonger. She was one of those unspecialized Ancients that meant she was old, old, old. And powerful, powerful, powerful. I wasn’t sure if she could dial things down and hide her energy signature or whether she was so strong that she didn’t bother, preferring instead to walk around with a giant blazing fuck-you energy that felt like a nuclear blast coming through my doorway.
“Welcome!” I dismissed Snip with a quick wave of my hand and ushered the Ancient into my living room. “I hope your journey was pleasant and that the gate guardian didn’t give you any trouble.”
She gave me a toothy smile. “She wasn’t pleased, but she gave me no trouble at all. Clearly I’d underestimated you, Iblis. Your network is more far-reaching than I’d imagined.”
I think it had helped that I didn’t have over three million years of baggage to cart around. And a shared love of fashion and cheap Chinese take-out hadn’t hurt.
“Who is this?” She eyed Lux with curiosity. He was doing the same from the couch, oatmeal smeared across his chin and chest. He was naked, as always, with Nyalla hovering protectively by his side.
“Lux. My kid.”
