Page 45 of Anarchy
I would let him finish, but I was probably going to melt his brain anyway because he kept pissing me off.
“I had been getting witches to summon demons other than Talvath trying to find one to get me out of my deal. Then, I met Silvaria. She had also made a deal for prestige and power. We worked nonstop until we found one who put us in contact with Akul. Akul and I came up with this together, and Silvaria wouldn’t stop bitching that I cut her out of it.
“We didn’t just raise you to kill demons and break contracts. You were our insurance policy against Lilith in case she investigated all the demons dying and got close to Akul.
“Akul had a condition that I didn’t give those sigils out to anyone. I was already fairly certain he intended to betray me when this was over, but I didn’t want to give him cause. I needed Silvaria and her connections to the supernatural community to make the promises Akul wanted me to make for his hit list.
“She can be insufferably needy and whiny. I wasn’t about to use any of my properties to hide Talvath. Even one buried under shell corporations could be traced back to me. The only way she would let us use her warehouse was if we shared the sigils with her.
“I made her do a blood oath not to share them with anyone, but I took out my own insurance policy. I have all those sigils on a cloud server. If I’m not returned to Earth unharmed, one of my associates will release them to everyone I contacted who made a deal. They’ll just torture them until they find out how to kill them and get out of their deals.”
I was done with this nonsense. I might be new to this century and things like the internet, but I knew what the cloud was. I also knew it was an online thing that required those complicated passwords like the social media site Balthazar tried to set up for me. I also knew that even if Dorian Gray managed to pick a password those infernal sites actually accepted, Balthazar had ways of figuring it out.
I walked over and punched that smug look off Dorian’s face. I felt some of his teeth break and cut my hand, but I didn’t care. Dorian’s head snapped back, and he slumped in his seat. I was still going to melt his brain later, but according to everyone, he was all over social media, which meant his cell phone was always close.
Dorian was dressed in this ridiculous suit that was now tattered and bloody since I’d been beating on him and blasting him with magic because he took my witch. His cell phone was in the front pocket in some kind of battle armor that saved it from my attacks.
Just then, Kaine came in.
“Anything? Akul is still being a petulant child because Bram ate his wife.”
“Dorian’s ego is good for something. He thought he could blackmail his way out of this. He seems to have forgotten there’s not a cloud server in existence that is safe from Balthazar. Can you watch him while I get Balthazar his phone? I punched him pretty hard. He won’t wake up until he heals. I have information for Lilith.”
“Didn’t he have a camera planted in Ripley’s apartment? So he knew damned well Balthazar was a gifted hacker, and he still kept that on a cloud server? I would have gone with paper copies in a safe deposit box after seeing that boy in action.”
“Dorian Gray has a bigger ego than some of the gods I know with much bigger resumes. He legitimately believed revealing a cloud server was going to get Lilith to let him walk out of here, and Balthazar would never find it.”
“Get the phone to Balthazar and go tell Lilith what he revealed. All Akul is doing is flinging profanities at Bram for his wife.”
I shrugged. She had it coming. I wouldn’t be mad if Bram ate Akul either. I don’t think anyone would. But we needed to find out who connected Dorian and Akul in the first place.
I could always test that theory about Dorian’s necklace protecting him from a little brain melting. Nothing would give me more satisfaction.
34
Bram
Iwasn’t sure why I was asked to be here. I also wasn’t sure why they wouldn’t let me leave. Lilith tried getting into Akul’s head by informing him that me and an army of Hellhounds ripped his wife, her friends, and his prized Hellhound apart. I got what she was doing. She was trying to break him, but it wasn’t working.
Talvath didn’t exactly raise me in the arts of interrogating criminals. He taught me to speak for myself and have my own opinions. My opinion on this was that it would go much smoother with me out of the room. Honestly, no one should have been in the room except Kaine. Kaine did this for a living, and he made his point when he ripped the roof of Akul’s house and flung him into the sky.
“Who is involved in this plot, Akul?” Talvath snapped.
“I should have given Dorian the tools to kill you when you were captured,” Akul spat. “That was my intention all along, but the pretty boy didn’t want to get his hands dirty, and he didn’t think he could spin this to people on Earth if they actually had to fight for their lives.”
I let out a little growl. I really just wanted to rip his head off like I had done his wife. Talvath was the epitome of cool. He looked like he was utterly bored, but I knew better. He was pissed and holding it in. That was the best way to piss off Akul.
“It was pretty stupid to partner up with a vain human, Akul. I’m just curious how you found him. I’ve made deals with countless people, but he’s the only human. You could have picked a more powerful being who actually asked for greater magic instead of wanting to be pretty for as long as possible. Honestly, I’m a little shocked at the stupidity behind all this.”
“Fuck you!”
“Bram didn’t kill your wife, Akul. You did. You were the one with this massive assassination plot. We would have tried to talk her down when she came to defend you, but all your Hellhounds said she was pretty awful and probably in on it. She attacked Lilith, you know.”
“Lilith attacked me first! In my own home!”
Lilith just let out a merry laugh.
“You attacked my creations long before we descended upon your home. You were going to kill demons so you could continue to abuse Hellhounds, and you had a witch in a cage.”
