Exodus (Imp Series Book 8) Read online

  Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. I noticed the elves sat on seats with some polyester covering on them, and that they weren’t shy about holding onto the PVC pipes that connected the crude porcelain toilet to the sewer lines.

  “You are their lawyer?” The woman at the desk asked. Magistrate? Clerk? Sargent? This was a tiny town and I had no idea how the law enforcement in France was structured. The only reference I had was the poor dude from the old Pink Panther movies.

  “Yep.” I must be getting better at lying because the woman didn’t bat an eye. “What are they here for?”

  “They were defacing statues. They also stole a crate of wine. I think they are Irish. I cannot understand a word they are saying but I have the impression they were trying to take the wine back home for some Lord or another.”

  That was high praise indeed if elves felt it was good enough to take back to Hel where they had great pride in their own spirits. “Do you have the crate of wine? Can I buy it?” I wasn’t a fan of wine, but Gregory was, and so was Nyalla. I might even share with Bob if I was feeling particularly generous.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Once we deal with these Irish, you can buy the wine. There is no sense in keeping it in the evidence locker when someone could be enjoying it.”

  “So, what do I need to do to get them out of here?” I figured it would be money. Nobody wanted a bunch of hung-over tourists in their jail. I’d pay their fine, then I’d ensure they returned home—to Hel, not Ireland.

  The woman named a sum that had me stifling a gasp. Fucking exchange rate. If the dollar was stronger against the Euro I wouldn’t have to practically bankrupt myself bailing these elves out of jail.

  “In addition, they need to do community service. Those statues must be repaired. If they cannot do it, then they will need to pay a sculptor to do so.”

  These elves were turning out to be more of a headache than I’d ever thought. I would rather be up in Aaru, getting stabbed with swords and in the middle of a life-or-death battle than standing around while these elves cleaned up graffiti and fixed broken statues.

  Although, come to think of it, breaking artwork was an odd thing for elves to do. They normally revered the creative process and all artistic products. Yes, they were snobs, but not to the point that they’d go about smashing statuary. Plus the French were similar in their artistic appreciation. Not just the classical stuff either. I was pretty sure that elves would appreciate even abstract artwork.

  “What exactly did they do to deface these statues?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I wanted to get this whole thing over with so I could return these elves to Hel and deal with the next wave of migration, which was probably happening right now.

  She waved her hand in a movement that seemed so stereotypically French. “They changed them. Moved arms, altered the angles on the faces and bodies. Personally, I think that they look better, but the statues have been in the town square for over one hundred years and people want them as they originally were.”

  Great. I shelled out the cash to spring the vandals and led the dozen elves out of the jail, quickly accomplishing their subdued compliance with the threat of handcuffs and a return to the cell. Once free, I made the elves lead me to the scene of the crime.

  It was a lovely park of about four acres, with trees and a fountain, and a set of three statues. Cherubs. All of them pouring water into the fountain from marble ewers. I’d never understood humans’ fascination with or representation of angels. These statues were the usual fat, smiling babies with wings. I had no idea what they’d looked like before, but they looked fine to me as they were.

  “Okay, whatever you did, undo it,” I commanded.

  At my words the elves unleashed a torrent of complaints, telling me that they’d only improved upon the artwork as a gift to the humans. It hadn’t been completely symmetrical, and the cherub’s arms were bent in a fashion that shouldn’t have been possible given what they knew of human anatomy. They loved humans. They wanted to stay and teach them how to create beauty, because these humans here clearly needed help. Desperately needed help. And these elves were just the ones to help them.

  I let them rattle on for a while until they ran out of things to say and fell silent. Honestly these elves didn’t seem all that horrible. They weren’t flogging humans in the streets, or demanding they turn over their homes. The worst these elves had done was improve some statuary and steal wine. I’d done far worse. If I’d let six elves stay in Iceland, maybe I could let these twelve stay in France.

  No. I couldn’t. Six here and a dozen there didn’t sound like much, but if I got all soft and started allowing them to stay, it would quickly add up to hundreds of elves and then Gregory would kill me. And judging from their first few hours among the humans, they would be constantly getting into trouble. The angel would find out in a matter of days with these guys running around repainting the Mona Lisa and camping out in a vineyard. No, they needed to go.

  I sighed, feeling a tad bit sorry for these guys and their enthusiasm. “Change them back, or I return you to the prison with the metal cuffs and metal bars. You’ll stay there forever. No one will come for you. No one. You’ll die in that horrible cage. Or you can return the statues to their former imperfect state, I’ll take you back to Hel, and then you can tell all the other elves about the horrible human artwork, as well as the bracelets of pain and cages that burn. Sound good?”

  It must have sounded good, because they got right to work with a minimal amount of grumbling. When they were done, I made them clean the graffiti off a nearby stone wall. And then they lined up and I called Little Red.

  “Is that a dragon?” One elf squeaked. They didn’t seem particularly afraid of Little Red. More wary and fascinated. He preened, soaking it up as the elves stroked his scales and complimented his appearance.

  “Yes. He’s young which means he doesn’t have much control over what he sets on fire. He’s going to watch you because I can only take a few at a time with me to Hel. If anyone comes by, claim he’s a pet, like a dog, or a Komodo dragon, or something.”

  Little Red seemed offended at the idea that he might be mistaken for a dog, but perked up at Komodo dragon. I wondered if they really were related. I’d need to take Little Red on a field trip to the National Zoo sometime soon to see if there was any long-lost connection there. Of course, I’d need to find time to do it in the next six months, before he returned, though.

  I’d started getting tired after the first trip, and my location skills were slipping. Which meant the elves were getting dropped off in the swamp, or out in the middle of a swarm of angry pteries. I didn’t care. I did care that after the third group I returned to France to find the remaining two were teaching my dragon to roll over and sit-up and beg.

  Not cool. In spite of what I’d said earlier, he wasn’t a dog. And I wasn’t sure the fruit and bread they were feeding him as a reward was good for him. Didn’t Sparky tell me dragons were carnivores? That’s all I needed was Little Red puking all over my house. In frustration, I grabbed both remaining elves.

  “Stay,” I told Little Red, realizing that I too was treating him like a dog. I’d make it up to him. Maybe swing by the store and get him a few tins of Spam on the way home. “Oh, and guard my crate of wine.”

  I was exhausted. These two elves wound up in the middle of Dis, surrounded by curious demons. Their feet barely hit the ground before I was gone. I grabbed my wine and my dragon, and headed for home. Maybe I could ask if Nyalla could get the Spam, or I could pay someone to deliver it. All I wanted right now was to put my feet up, try some of this wine that I was sure I’d hate, and take a nap.

  It wasn’t to be either. Bob greeted me enthusiastically upon my arrival, informing me that he’d just received word that another migration was occurring in Iowa.

  “It’s almost dark,” I complained. “I’m off the clock. I’ll go chase elves in the morning. Right now I’m going to crash. Oh, and can you ask Nils to run out and buy some Spam for Little Red?
He’ll need it to counteract the fruit and bread those stupid elves fed him in France.”

  Bob sighed at my slight toward his people. “It’s an hour behind in Iowa,” he reminded me. “If you hurry, you can be done and back before it gets dark there.”

  “Bed,” I told him. Actually I was hoping the humans could do the work for me and I’d just collect the elves from the jail as I had in France. Even if I did zip out to Iowa, I was too worn out to transport another dozen or so elves to Hel. Which meant I’d either need to stay there, taking turns watching them all night with Little Red, or bring them back here, where I really didn’t want them. Six elves in my house? I didn’t want them here. Nyalla wouldn’t want them here. In fact, she was probably getting a bit pissed about Bob’s freedom with my home and my internet. Nope. No elves. There would be no additional elves staying at my home. And hopefully I could manage to get rid of Bob soon too. I wondered if the werewolves would take him in.

  “Bed,” I repeated again as I headed to the stairs. “And don’t forget to tell Nils about the Spam.”

  Chapter 11

  I awoke to the glorious feel of arms around me, Gregory’s weight pressed against my backside, his legs entwined with mine.

  “Things okay in Aaru?” I asked, knowing that he wasn’t asleep. That angel never slept.

  “No better. No worse.” He pulled me tighter against him. “How’s the elf problem?”

  I sighed, thinking I really needed to get my ass to Iowa and deal with batch number three. Later. Much later. I had an angel in my bed and I wasn’t about to leave voluntarily.

  “Two migrations so far. I managed to send the group in France back to Hel. The humans had locked them all in a jail cell for defacing statuary. Iceland is another matter. Seems they have something close to elf-worship there. I stuffed the lot of them in a car while I was arguing with their magistrate and they wound up with metal-allergy burns. They’re all in a hospital right now, being plied with sandwiches and gifts. They plan to use them as a tourist attraction.”

  Gregory laughed. “In a zoo? Or like the dragon in the British Museum?”

  “The latter, except I think they plan to give them a forest area. Designate it as a sanctuary or something and charge people admission. Personally, I think they’d be better off with a dragon.”

  “A dragon would eat them,” Gregory observed.

  “Better eaten than enslaved,” I countered. Although I was beginning to doubt even that. Yes, there were elves that would want to rule this place and its inhabitants, but the elves I’d encountered to date seemed to truly want to work with the humans and improve their lives. “I should have let the ones in France stay,” I told him. “I feel kind of guilty about sending them back.”

  “Don’t go getting all soft on me,” he teased. “You’re the Iblis, the Adversary. You’re not supposed to be feeling guilty about these things.”

  Maybe. I still did feel guilty, though. And I had work to do. I thought briefly of the elves in Iowa, then closed my eyes. My angel and I snuggled for a while, neither of us wanting to move.

  “How many?”

  It took me a second to realize he was asking about the elves. “A dozen in France. Six in Iceland.” I purposely didn’t tell him about the ones in Iowa, knowing he’d make me get up and get over there. I didn’t want to go anywhere right now. Or possibly ever.

  “We need to get those elves out of Iceland,” he said. “I’d planned on spreading the Klee elves around individually, but these are clustered together. And if the humans plan to capitalize on their existence, the angels will eventually find out.”

  “How? It’s not like Aaru gets e-mail. Angels there aren’t receiving travel brochures in the mail or searching vacation destinations on Expedia. The only angels likely to come across them are the Grigori, and they’re yours.”

  “Mine on loan,” he corrected. “They are pledged to be loyal to me, but their hearts are with their choirs. I’ve tried to weed out the extremists, but there’s no saying one won’t find out about the elves in Iceland and spread the word.”

  I shrugged. “You covered up when your Grigori saw Amber. Twice. Hush this one too.”

  “Amber is one, and her succubus half allows her to blend in with the humans most of the time. This is a group of elves, living openly as elves and being advertised as such by the humans. I won’t be able to hush it.”

  He seemed so frustrated by this whole thing. I got that he didn’t want elves here. I didn’t want them here either. They’d royally fuck things up with the humans, and I didn’t trust them one bit. That said, six elves in Iceland wasn’t an apocalyptic-sized disaster. And I didn’t get why he was so worried about the angels knowing.

  “So they find out and throw a big welcome party. Big deal. We’ll keep the elven migration to a few hundred tops. We’ll divide them across the globe so they can’t take over a first-world nation. No biggie.”

  “It is a biggie.” Gregory rolled me over to face him. “There’s not just a welcome party at stake here, it’s the whole human realm. The elves chose to leave for Hel at the end of the war, but we made it quite clear that we’d welcome them back. At that time humans weren’t as they are now. We thought the elves would be of help in shepherding them along. They were to be the ones here, walking among the humans, not the Grigori. If they come back, they’ll be expected to take our place among the humans. My job here will be done. Aaru’s job here will be done.”

  The elves had gone to Hel after the war. The tenth choir had taken their place here among the humans, and then disaster. The first Grigori had fallen into sin, giving the humans gifts they weren’t yet ready to receive, lying with them and siring children. The direction human evolution had taken was the fault of the tenth choir. What better solution to this whole mess than to pull away and let the elves do the job the angels had originally intended them to do.

  Only the humans had changed considerably over two and a half million years. The elves had changed too. And there was no going back in time. Not that the rebels in Aaru would think of that. This was just one more reason for them to believe they were right. With the elves finally realizing the error of their ways and coming back to help, they’d leave the humans to elven management, and lock the gates of Aaru to regain their precious vibration levels.

  “There has to be another way,” I argued. “If I can’t manage to keep the elves in Hel, if they get discovered, then the angels will insist that they remain. I’m less than thrilled with that, but if it happens the only way elves living among humans will work is with angelic supervision—Grigori supervision. You can’t leave.”

  Tears stung my eyes. Stupid fucking elves. This was their plot. Divide Aaru. Come through the gates. Then take over. The elves clearly had the notion that they’d be left in charge of the humans while the angels holed up in Aaru. It would be like turning the world over to a group of megalomaniacs—megalomaniacs with fireballs and paralyzing arrows.

  “I think you’re underestimating the humans, Cockroach. There are what, a few hundred thousand in all the elven kingdoms together? The humans greatly outnumber them. This is their land. Their ‘magic’ is completely unfamiliar to the elves. I foresee the sheep will soon be guiding the shepherd.”

  Maybe he was right, but the humans were easily enchanted by magic and the idea of fae. I’d just witnessed that in Iceland, and I worried that with pretty speeches and promises of riches for all, the sheep would be hobbled at the best, led to slaughter at the worst.

  “But you can’t leave them. There must always be Grigori here to assist.”

  Gregory’s grim expression wasn’t reassuring. “If it’s discovered that we were refusing to allow the elves to leave Hel, it will strengthen the opposition against us in Aaru. I’ve been thinking about this. What we’re fighting against—it’s inevitable, as inevitable as the eventual apocalypse. I’d hoped to put the half-elves on an island or something to get them up to speed on human society and planned a staged integration. We can do the same with th
e other elves as long as I have time to organize it. That way the Grigori and I could can claim that we have some kind of assimilation process for the elves. That will satisfy a good number of the angels and may take the heat off us. It could even be enough to quench the fires of rebellion. It would direct their attention to the elves and away from us.”

  I got it. It would also direct their attention away from me. But the idea still bothered me. An island orientation program sounded great for the half-elves, but I hated the thought of hundreds of thousands of elves here. Hated it.

  “What rights do the humans have in any of this?” I asked. “This is their place. It’s bad enough they have you Grigori standing over them with a gun pointed to their collective heads, ready to pull the trigger if they don’t ‘evolve’ the way you want. Now you’re going to dump a bunch of elves on them, and the best you can do is stuff them on an island and hope to train them into being good co-stewards of this place?”

  “We’re angels. The ‘transition over time’ can be tens of thousands of years. In the meantime, we’ll ensure they don’t leave the island or interact with the humans until they’re ready.”

  “It doesn’t matter how long it takes! You’re trading humans in a deal you made nearly three million years ago. And for what? To win enough angels to your side to keep the Ruling Council intact?”

  “How do you not understand?” Gregory snapped in return. “You were there at the meeting when we were attacked. Judging by Chabriel and Baradel’s actions in recent Council meetings, we’ve lost two choirs to the rebels. We’ve lost Uriel’s seat. We’re losing. If things keep going this way, my brothers and I will be replaced from the Ruling Council, possibly even banned from Aaru all together. That’s if we’re not killed. Weaken us, tear us down little by little and it won’t be so hard to murder us in our own circles. This situation has become so dire that we three archangels practically stand alone. If we can sway enough of the angels to our side, hold onto Aaru, then everything will be better in the long run. It’s a short term sacrifice for a better future state.”