Page 5 of The Morning Star
“The Ruling Council can’t enforce these rules.” He caressed my arm. “You must see that, Cockroach. We’d be viewed as a group of others, or enemies, oppressing their old foes once more. You want unity? It can’t come from a bunch of archangels backing you up every time the going gets tough. You’ll never gain respect that way. They’ll see you as a puppet, a sellout, a weak imp whose only claim to rule is that she’s ingratiated herself with a powerful enemy.”
Tears stung my eyes and I blinked them back. He was right, but I didn’t have it in me to lead the denizens of Hel. I was an imp, a catalyst for change. In the human business world, once the catalyst had finished ripping down the establishment, a very different person, a leader, came in to rebuild. Two different skillsets but I only had the one.
I’d never be the leader Hel needed. Better to back off, let demons get used to some peaceable contact with the angels, take care of the infractions one at a time, and revisit this later, when we were ready.
When an actual leader rose from Hel and took this fucking sword out of my hands.
I sighed and stepped forward, wrapping my arms around Gregory and resting my forehead on his chest. Yes, I was hurt that he didn’t think me capable, but the truth hurts, and what he’d said was definitely the truth. For now, I was what Hel needed, but I’d never be that being long-term. Never. Hel needed more than an imp.
“I have chips,” I told him. “The crab kind that you like. Do you want some? And can I get you a cup of coffee?”
I felt him hesitate, knew the million things running through his mind—things he needed to do, important things. This was our life now. Stolen moments, and a whole lot of “maybe later, after I get back from this or that.” Hopefully tonight would be one of those stolen moments.
“Lux is with Dar and Asta. Gabe and Nyalla are gone. The Lows are all in the guest house. It’s just you and me here tonight. Stay. Stay with me.”
His arms went around me, crushing me to him.
“I know,” I whispered, barely able to breathe. “I know. You don’t have time. Maybe this weekend?”
“I shouldn’t stay.” His voice rumbled in his chest. “But there are some things more important than reports and meetings.”
I smiled against the soft cotton of his polo shirt. “Like coffee and chips?”
I felt him kiss the top of my head, felt his spirit-self against mine, merging along the edges. “No, like you.”
Chapter 2
“Do angel infants know how to swim?” Nyalla squinted as she stared toward the pool.
I took a swig of beer and shrugged. “Fuck if I know.” Asta had dropped Lux off early this morning after having spoiled the little angel for the last two days at her and Dar’s swank condo in Chicago.
Gregory hadn’t spent the night, but at least we’d had the evening to ourselves. Around midnight, he’d been unable to put off his work any longer and left. Soon after I’d heard Nyalla return from wherever she and Gabe had been, creeping up the stairs as quietly as she could. I didn’t want to know what the two did when they weren’t at my house. Honestly, I didn’t want to know what they did when they were at my house.
“Lux is trying to get into the pool.” There was considerable worry in Nyalla’s tone.
Nyalla was far more concerned about Lux’s safety than I was. He was an angel. If he was stupid enough to fall into the pool, then he’d either swim or drown. Demons believed very strongly in the unaided survival of the fittest, which is probably why our infant and childhood mortality rates were so high even with dwarven caregivers to keep us from eating or incinerating each other. I didn’t have a dwarven nanny for Lux, although I’d done the equivalent of putting up ads all over Hel for one. It seems the only dwarf willing to cross the gates and live here among the humans was the one I’d snagged for Dar and Asta. And Dar was refusing to share him. Fucker.
“Gregory isn’t going to be happy if Lux kills off another corporeal form,” Nyalla warned.
I snorted. “The kid’s already died four times this week.” Technically he’d died twice today, so it was more like six times this week. I wondered if angels had nine lives, like cats did. Lux certainly seemed to. Demons and angels, outside of the more powerful ones, struggled to live inside a deceased corporeal form, and the shock of that death often kept them from creating a new physical body in enough time to avoid the disintegration of their spirit-self. In other words, they died for reals. Shoot a demon in the head, and it was about thirty-seventy that he’d shrug it off. Blow one up with a pipe bomb, and unless he was an Ancient, he was pretty much a goner. Actually the pipe bomb thing took out some angels as well. Don’t ask me how I know that. It was a secret. And if it got out, I’d have a shit-ton of reports to fill out.
There was a distinctive splash sound from the pool.
“Snip! Make sure Lux doesn’t drown!” I shouted, just in case the angel was running out of lives. He seemed to be pretty hardy compared to demon young, and Gregory had commented several times about how skilled and intelligent Lux was. Of course, all parents think that about their kids, even if they are sort-of adopted.
“I can’t swim!” Snip shouted back.
I pried open one eye and saw the Low standing at the edge of the pool, looking down at the water. With a sigh of exasperation, I sat up and checked to see if my kid was dead or not.
He wasn’t. Lux was buck naked, swimming around like the baby on the cover of that Nirvana album. As he surfaced, he blew out a spout of water that a whale would envy, hitting Snip right in the face and knocking him on his ass. I chuckled to see the Low soaking wet and sputtering on the ground, then lay back down in my lounge chair. If anyone had told me that stuffy old Angels of Order could be this naughty when they were infants, I would never have believed them. Dar’s little girl wasn’t anything like Lux, although she always seemed thrilled when the other baby angel came to visit. I tried to play on that as much as possible to get Asta and Dar to watch my kid. It worked about ninety percent of the time. Asta liked Lux. Although I think part of her liking Lux was to pressure Dar into having another angel of their own.
He’d give in. Dar always gave in when it came to Asta. Pussy.
“Gabe got back from an EU meeting this afternoon,” Nyalla told me. “He popped in for lunch, then had to go to D.C.”
The Ruling Council had made Gabriel their liaison with the various human leaders, convincing them of the need to comply with the angel’s new world order. It was a job he’d embraced with his usual dogmatic attention to detail.
The angels were in charge, but the humans hadn’t realized that yet. Seems when I’d accidently banished the entire angelic host from Aaru, I’d set up a situation where they’d be more hands-on with the humans. Once the humans realized this, they wouldn’t be happy. But what could they do?
