Kingdom of Lies (Imp Series Book 7) Read online

  “’Bout time you got here.” I still couldn’t see him, since the dust and chunks of drywall were suspended midair, but I could feel him, opposite Beatrix, near what used to be the lingerie section.

  “I landed on top of the gate guardian out in the parking lot. Once we managed to extricate ourselves from the refrigerator, I assisted her in locating a pet store.”

  I was less interested in Gregory’s story about shopping for hamsters and more interested in this demonstration of his power. The cat, Nyalla, Beatrix, everything in the mall as far as I could see was locked in place. “Fuck me with a salami, how did you manage this? How far are you freezing time?”

  “It’s a bit excessive, but I didn’t have the luxury of calculating area of effect.” I heard the strain in his voice. “Is there more than one? And where is it?”

  I swallowed hard and walked toward him, feeling the crush of air molecules against my skin. Carefully I shifted the dust from the air to give Gregory a clear view of the kitten. After our intimate moments on Uranus, after the time-freeze with the troll in Pennsylvania, I was fully aware of how incredibly skilled my angel was. Each atom I moved had to be accounted for, shifted then held in place in connection with others. I was doing the best I could to help him, but my efforts were nothing compared to the power and ability it took to hold everything safely as I moved, unfrozen, among it all.

  “Right here.” I pointed.

  “I’m going to reduce the area of effect to free Nyalla and the gate guardian.”

  It was then I wondered why I hadn’t been frozen in place. I’d been within the ‘zone’. Beatrix got caught in it, her face stuck in a hysterical ‘oh shit’ expression. If it worked on another being of spirit, why not me?

  “You are a part of me, little Cockroach,” Gregory said as he carefully reduced the area held in stasis. I heard the thunk of ceiling tiles and light fixtures hit the floor. “I can’t lock myself in time. That would create an untenable loop, therefore I can’t freeze you either.” He smiled. “Although I doubt I could do this to any of the more powerful angels. They’d fight it, and we’d have a catastrophe on our hands.”

  Cat-astrophe. I snorted at the unintentional pun. Slowly, carefully Gregory restored movement in every area except a few feet surrounding the kitten.

  Nyalla exchanged a nervous glance with Beatrix. “Hope this works,” the gate guardian said, walking tentatively toward Destructo Kitty and ripping the top off one of her plastic bags. She upended it, causing a layer of dried green leaves to hover a foot above the kitten. Then she did the same with the second bag, keeping half of the leaves.

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Gregory raised his eyebrows at her. “Wouldn’t it be prudent for you to step back, perhaps behind something fireproof?”

  Beatrix shook her head. “Nah. If things go bad, I want to be close enough to throw more of this on it, or whack it with a two-by-four or something.”

  Better her than me. I retreated, ensuring Nyalla was a safe distance away. I also made sure we were behind Gregory. I didn’t trust this was going to work any better than the laser pointer app, and I’d rather this cat have to go through two angels before trying to take me, or my girl, out.

  Gregory released his hold, and a shower of drywall and green leaves rained down upon the cat. It gave a surprised yowl then went silent. When the dust cleared, amazingly, the kitten was stretched out on the floor, flexing his paws and rubbing his face gleefully in the leaves.

  “Catnip.” Nyalla crossed her arms in front of her and grinned at me. “Best feline sedative ever.”

  I approached and peered hesitantly at Destructo Kitty. “He’s stoned out of his mind.” I turned to Gregory. “What is this thing, and where is it from? I’m assuming there’s a gate nearby we need to stuff this kitten through and seal up?”

  The angel shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. From what I can tell, it’s a domestic cat. Felis catus.”

  “Domestic cats don’t shoot lasers out of their eyes, or any of that other stuff.” I waved a hand around at the damaged mall. “It’s got to be an alien cat or something.”

  “No, it’s just a cat,” Nyalla chimed in. “Just a helpless little kitten caught in a spell.”

  Oh no. No fucking way. “An elf or a demon? Which idiot came here and wasted one of the gem charges on a kitten ?” And how the fuck did that even work? The gem was supposed to enhance the caster , not turn a furry mammal into the monster in a B horror movie. Damn Gareth. If the gem did this to a kitten, what would it do to a demon? I knew he’d told some falsehoods regarding this magical item, but I never envisioned the stolen gem had this sort of power.

  “It wasn’t the elf.” Nyalla’s expression was grim. “It was a demon. We were watching for the elf, so we didn’t take as much notice as we should have. He bespelled this kitten, and when it went crazy and started trashing the place, he went through the gate.”

  It still didn’t make sense. “He wasted a charge of the gem to cause a distraction? What kind of demon is this?”

  Imp. It had to have been an imp. But how would an imp have had the money to buy the gem from Swifty?

  “Mid-level greed demon,” Beatrix spat out. “I hate those things. Illusions, deceptions, and they always have a good grasp on the human form. They’re hard to catch and even harder to kill.”

  Greed demon. Mid-level. I remembered what the gargoyle had told me in Dallas and felt sure it was the same demon, even given the distance between Texas and Maryland.

  “And to your other question,” Gregory said, eying the purring kitten. “If you had purchased a gem in a back-alley transfer from an elf, would you risk yourself before testing it on another?”

  Yeah, right. I gave him one of those ‘significant’ looks that he was so good at, and he sighed.

  “Of course you would, but would any demon of reasonable intellect with a modicum of self-preservation?”

  “Okay, I get it,” I replied. “But why a cat?”

  “No need to restrain them or attempt consent. A cat isn’t liable to hunt you down and enact revenge if the effect isn’t as promised and it survives.”

  Made sense. I put myself in the demon’s place and winced. “He went through the gate to Hel. Whatever he plans to do with the gem, it must be there.”

  Not that here was any better than in Hel, but here I had angelic backup. Gregory and his crew couldn’t cross the gates to Hel, which left me, myself, and I. No one else in Hel would give a shit about what this demon was doing. It was every demon for himself over there, and the only people who’d fight him were those in the household he was attacking. A greed demon. They each had quirks, particular areas they obsessed over. If I could find out who this demon was, I could determine who, or what, he would be going after first. And hopefully get there before he used the gem on himself.

  “Can either of you describe this demon?” It was a long shot, but I was hoping Nyalla or Beatrix would relay identifying characteristics, and I’d have an ‘aha’ moment.

  Beatrix replied. “Male human form. Six-feet tall, pale with close-cut light-brown hair. Pug nose, full face, receding chin. He licked his lips a lot more than normal. Left eye was slightly drooped compared to the right. Protruding mole on his jaw, left side.”

  That was way more detailed than I’d ever expected. “Ewwww. Did it have hair growing out of the mole?”

  “No.”

  Beatrix knew her shit. Unfortunately I didn’t recognize her description. Either I didn’t know the demon or had never seen him in this particular form.

  I turned to Gregory. “Can you let me know if any of your angels find that elf? I’ll send Nyalla back to my house to coordinate. Call her if he’s found and she can contact me in Hel.”

  “I can’t spare my Grigori for much longer. I’ve got to deal with all the creatures coming through the gates. I want to help you, but this is more important.”

  True, but I had a bad feeling about this gem and decided it needed to boun
ce back up my priority list. I doubted if this greed demon used the gem on himself, he could be subdued with catnip. This might go from bad to worse real quick.

  “Nyalla, can you help your brother with the creature sightings? I’ll call Nils back from wherever he is and have him help track down the elf.”

  “Got it.”

  I winced. She was taking this all in stride—enthusiastically even. Damn, I’d never get her to go into a career as an insurance adjuster now.

  “Beatrix, can you call Nyalla if you see an elf? And let her know if any more Destructo Kitties show up.”

  The gate guardian blinked at my use of her name. “What shall we do with the cat? Eventually he’s going to come out of his catnip stupor and start blowing stuff up again.”

  Damn. It wasn’t like with the harpy or other creatures we could send back home. This cat had no home. He’d been changed, and I wasn’t sure when the effect would wear off—if ever.

  “Guess we’ll have to kill him,” I announced.

  “No!” Nyalla gasped. Yeah, the girl who whacked a kitten halfway across Macy’s with a nine iron was appalled at the idea of me killing the thing.

  “Then what do you suggest?” I’ll admit my tone was a bit more sarcastic than I usually used with her, but I was hungry, tired, short-tempered, and in desperate need of an alcoholic beverage.

  The girl pursed her lips, tapping her cheek with a finger as she eyed the sleeping ball of fluff. “Take it with you to Hel?”

  I’d carried a durft around before, and those things were vicious. Mean and sharp-toothed as they were, durfts didn’t shoot laser beams out of their eyes. “You’re fucking joking?”

  “There are all sorts of stuff like this cat in Hel. He can defend himself, hunt for food. He’ll be happy there.”

  Right. Maybe he’d find a liger and fall in love. It wasn’t like any other option was remotely close to optimal, though. “Give me that.” I snatched the half-empty bag of catnip from Beatrix and used a broken piece of shelving to scoop the cat into it.

  I know. I had a lethal Destructo Kitty asleep in a plastic bag full of catnip. As an afterthought, I poked a few holes in the side of the bag, in case the little monster needed to breathe. Then I picked my way through the rubble that used to be Columbia Mall and walked through the gate to Hel.

  Chapter 20

  I didn’t want to carry Destructo Kitty around any longer than I had to. I was probably pushing my luck just strolling through the gate with him in the bag of catnip. Taking in my surroundings, I tried to figure out the most cat-friendly spot to dump him. Yes, he was a monster, but he was still kind of cute, and I at least wanted him to have a fighting chance. The swamps didn’t seem the ideal environment, and neither did the red sand closer to Dis. That left the grasslands and... elves.

  The Western Red Forest, the borderland between Cyelle and the demon lands, was nearby. It would serve those pointy-eared bastards right to have this cat roaming their forests. Checking to make sure I wasn’t going to be accosted by juveniles with range weapons again, I found a fairly safe spot under a tree and upended the bag onto the moss. Then I ran and hid behind a tree.

  The cat squawked as he thumped onto the ground. Staggering to his feet, he turned in a circle, fluffing the catnip from the bag into a layer of bedding. Then Destructo Kitty went back to sleep, snoring loudly.

  Huh. So much for my passive-aggressive revenge against the elves. Scooping the cat back into the bag, I decided on another option. Hopefully the cat would come out of his drug-fueled nap, eat a bag of Doritos, then once again become a rampaging monster after I got where I was going. In the meantime, I had a demon to catch.

  How I was going to accomplish that, I didn’t know. So I figured I’d start at the closest place where mover-and-shaker demons hung out—Dis. Expanding my wings, I took flight, speeding as fast as I could over grassy plains and across the rock-studded red sands. Within hours, the megaliths surrounding the city appeared black on the horizon. This part of Hel was flat, and distance was deceptive.

  The sun was sinking low by the time I landed and walked down the main street of the city. My feathered wings still attracted a lot of attention, and demons stared. Some threw rocks. Some catcalled. The fact that everyone was busy following me like I was the pied piper meant the demon I’d been searching for wasn’t here or wasn’t running amok.

  I strode into Gareth’s place, punching through the alarms, wincing at the sharp stab of pain each one caused. Once I breached the final rune, I walked through the metal door and slammed my hand down on the counter.

  “Nice to see you, Iblis.” Gareth ignored my dramatic entrance and continued carving a border around a yew wand.

  “The elf sold the gem to a demon. He’s already tested it, and I don’t expect it will be long before he uses it on himself. I need to find the demon and know what to expect if he’s used the gem.”

  The sorcerer’s hands shook as he carved. “I don’t have any way of tracking the gem or who holds it. If this is beyond your abilities, then perhaps there is another way for you to repay the favors you owe me.”

  I ignored him and put the plastic bag full of catnip and sleeping Destructo Kitty on his counter. “This is what the gem did. Not exactly a spell enhancer, is it? Or an enhancement to the caster? Unless any old furry mammal is able to use the gem.”

  Gareth stared at the sleeping kitten. “What is that thing?”

  “A baby domestic cat. They are used for rodent control, but their primary purposes is to look cute and irresistible so humans feed them and provide them with shelter and vast amounts of physical affection.”

  He peered closer. “I do have the urge to touch it. He looks very soft.”

  “He is, and normally when you stroke them, they make very pleasing vibratory noises. This one, however, has been altered. Now, when you stroke him, he throws large household objects at you, sets things on fire, and shoots laser beams from his eyes.”

  Gareth winced. “The gem was just supposed to enhance the abilities of the spell caster. I swear that was our original intent, but Swiftethian thought if we altered a few of the spells, non-mages could use it, or even apply it to a third party.”

  “So you could make more of them and sell them.” And now I was pissed off. All the sympathy I’d felt at Gareth’s attempt to level the playing field for humans in Hel vanished. Greed, that wonderful sin, had gotten its hooks into the mage, and he’d embraced it.

  “They’re difficult to make, and only one in a hundred actually work, so it’s not like there would be dozens of them all over Hel.”

  Which made it even more valuable. No wonder Swiftethian had stolen it. No wonder he’d found a demon buyer. No wonder there was a kitten snoozing on the counter who could shoot laser beams out of his eyes.

  I should probably back out of this whole thing, but I’d already put a lot of effort into it. Plus I was nervous about any magical item that could do this to a kitten. Probably more nervous about that than the prospect of drop bears and harpies having free access to the humans they loved to eat.

  “How many charges does this thing have?” Gareth had been vague before, but I knew he wouldn’t create something valuable like this without putting some limitations on it. He’d not make as much money if a demon could buy one then just resell it all over the place until the end of time.

  “Six.”

  I looked down at the kitten. Well, that was one down, five to go.

  “And there is only one in existence?”

  “Yes.”

  I locked my gaze on Gareth’s eyes, shifting my wings. “There will only be one. If I find that you or anyone else has made another, you will pay with your life. Do you understand?”

  I liked Gareth. I hoped to continue working with him in the future. But I was the Iblis, and I couldn’t let this sort of thing pass without explaining that our prior cordial relationship wouldn’t save him if he crossed the line.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “I understand.”

&
nbsp; “And you will not be getting it back. Something that turns a kitten into a laser-eyed Incredible Hulk shouldn’t be in existence. I’ll make sure it is destroyed, and in return you will consider all my favors paid. Got it?”

  “Yes. I have got it.”

  “Good. Now that we’ve covered that, I need to know more. What exactly does this thing enhance? This cat isn’t any bigger. It’s moderately more intelligent, but I don’t see it doing calculus or advanced astrophysics. What determines the skills the gem enhances?”

  “It depends.” Gareth’s voice was barely a whisper. He’d set aside the wand and knife, abandoning any pretense at continuing the work. “There are four avenues the spell can take: offence/defense capabilities, physical health and strength, knowledge and power, and intuition/sensory skills.”

  “So the cat got the offence and defense enhancement. What happens if the one who wields the gem doesn’t specify? I’m assuming he, or she, needs to hold the desire in mind when activating the device?”

  The sorcerer nodded. “If the caster doesn’t specify, or if they’re distracted or their will is not strong enough to sway the magic one way or another, the gem’s spell takes the path of least resistance. It will enhance whatever strength the intended recipient already holds.”

  “So a mid-level greed demon?” Strength and physical health were a given for demons. When you could change your physical form to just about anything, that attribute came with birth. Likewise offence and defense. A Low, maybe, but any demon above that level wouldn’t find that appealing enough to waste a costly spell. That left intuition and sensation, or knowledge and power. We all loved sensation, but I was banking on the latter.

  “Knowledge to know where things were hidden, to spot frauds, and to know an item’s value probably.” Gareth said. “And the power to knock someone out of the way and take whatever he wanted.”

  The kitten stirred, opening one yellow-green eye and purring.

  “Is the effect permanent?” I asked, eyeing the cat.