Page 54 of The Morning Star
“What do you want in return?” I didn’t have to offer a deal. I could take any offered soul without even a thank-you. I could take even a non-offered soul, although those were sometimes troublesome to Own. But this woman…I felt like I was on the edge of something momentous, something life-changing.
“Revenge,” she whispered, but I knew she wanted far more than that.
“What do you want?” I pressed again, having to know the answer.
“I want the life I should have had,” she told me.
I took her. And when dickhead and his cronies had returned, I’d killed every last one of them. Then I went and killed the boyfriend who’d traded her to his dealer to pay off his debt. Then I went on to live a life as a human with her right beside me all the way. Say what you will, but it changes a demon to walk side-by-side with a human soul for nearly four decades. I’d released her soul along with the others when I thought I was going to die in Ahriman’s dungeon, but in a way, Samantha Martin still walked with me. I continued to bear her name here among the humans, and I still used her appearance as my primary form both in and out of Hel.
I hoped I’d given her the life she’d wanted—the kickass, empowered life she’d been cheated of.
The television footage had been from central LA, so I’d teleported and walked in along I-10. The highway was empty aside from some abandoned cars along the shoulder, and a handful fleeing outbound as fast as they could. Seems everyone had decided to hunker down and ride it out, praying the angels would come to their rescue.
Smoke spiraled up Chinatown, or possibly Dodger Stadium. I hopped off the highway near City Hall and prowled around the streets of downtown, eyeing smashed buildings and upside-down cars. LA was a huge city. To cause this kind of widespread damage, Samael had to have brought thousands of demons. Possibly more.
A few figures darted among the alleyways and pre-dawn shadows, scurrying over walls and into doorways.
“Hey,” I shouted, knowing a hoard of Low demons when I saw them. Lows. I doubted Samael would have bothered with them in his illustrious army, so these were probably the tagalongs that followed any group of demons, trying to stay out of the way and grab a few interesting items in the leavings of the higher-level demons.
Normally I’d identify myself as the Iblis, because no matter if a Low was in my household or not, they tended to flock to me as their leader, but I didn’t want to announce my presence quite yet—not until I’d gotten in to see Samael. But as a human, I’d only be a target, and anyone who really tried would catch a hint of my spirit-self. It was harder to completely lock my energy down ever since I’d acquired the wings and become an Angel of Chaos.
So instead I tried to appear a low-level imp, the sort who might have reluctantly been included in an army of invaders but just as easily left behind once the action got going.
“Hey, where’s the party? I got stuck in an elevator and everyone was gone by the time I got out. Hellooooo?”
A few shadows moved in an alleyway, and I suddenly saw a pair of heads with huge pointed leathery ears and whiskery noses. Scaled and clawed hands clacked along the corner of the building, a furry tail with spiked end flicked into view.
“Do you have a weapon?”
Only the sword, and I wasn’t about to summon it and give myself away. “I’m a demon. Why would I be carrying a weapon?”
The Low’s nose twitched. “Show me your demon form.”
Crap. I’d been so used to walking around in a human form, that I’d forgotten how unusual that was among demons—especially demons attacking a human city and wanting to intimidate the locals with their strange appearance. But my primary form was just as distinctive, and quite possibly recognizable. Instead I grew a set of horns from my head and a long forked tail from my ass, turning my lower half furry and brown with cloven hooves for feet and an upper half with red scales. My eyes glowed gold with reptilian pupils, and I shot a long barbed tongue out of my mouth to taste the air.
“Better?”
The Low eased his way out of the alley, his long body twice the size it should have been given his two tiny heads. He took a tentative step toward me then froze, his noses quivering. Faster than I could blink he was back into the alleyway and out of sight.
“Halt. Put your…paws in the air and turn slowly around.”
I put my “paws” above my head and turned to see a line of guys armed in SWAT apparel behind me, all six of them pointing some rather serious-looking weaponry at my body. Damn. I eyed the alley, stretching my awareness as far as it would go to try to sense any hint of demon energy. Gone. Unless they were better than me at hiding their spirit-selves, the Lows had fled far away. It was just me and these humans with their fingers on the triggers.
“I’m one of the good guys.” I never in my life thought I’d be saying that, but compared to everyone else in this town, I was relatively good.
“On your knees,” one of them commanded. It was hard to know which one since they all had on helmets and were speaking with some sort of amplification system.
“Seriously. Watch.” I transformed back into my human form, naked of course. They shot me. I shouldn’t have been surprised given how twitchy these guys probably were.
Getting shot by six guys with automatic weapons thankfully wouldn’t kill me, but it was enough to knock me down and fill me with enough bloody holes that I was pretty sure every organ in my body had been perforated. I waited until they were done, waited until I heard some panicked discussion about whether I was dead or not, then I simultaneously got up, repaired my physical form, and revealed my wings.
They shot me again. And the wings that I’d thought would clue them in that I was on the good-guy side of things did nothing but cause me excruciating pain as bullets slammed into them. I screamed and everything slowed. The Iblis sword appeared in my hand, sucking bullets into itself like a pointy metal vacuum. My wings extended with a snap, and suddenly the sound of gunfire ceased to be replaced by human screams.
The humans threw red-hot guns to the ground, peeling off helmets and riot gear as quickly as they could, kicking them aside. Swarms of insects rose from the vests and helmets. Within seconds I was facing six half-naked men, shouting and cursing as they swatted at themselves.
“Stop fucking shooting me,” I snapped before dismissing the insects I’d somehow summoned or created without conscious thought. “Next time you shoot my wings, it’s gonna be scorpions and snakes. Got it?”
The men faced me, red welts and bite marks forming on their skin. Eyes widened as they took in the wings they’d somehow not noticed when they were spraying bullets at me. It’s a sad commentary on the state of human law enforcement training when they don’t notice that someone has a sixty-foot wingspan before they open fire.
