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  The Low’s bulging eyes wandered to somewhere off the edge of my left shoulder and widened with alarm. I instinctively ducked, hitting the ground as a burst of fire took off the top half of the coin machine as well as three rows of Seattle-themed shot glasses and beer mugs. Gimlet had ducked as I had and landed somewhat on top of me. Which meant the blobs of hot molten glass and splinters of burning wood were landing on him and not me.

  The Low let out a stream of curses and rolled, his clothing burnt, his skin blistered and blackened. I winced, knowing how difficult it was for these little demons to repair injury. But instead of flailing about in agony, Gimlet jumped to his feet, and with a snarl took off out the door.

  I tucked the salmon in my waistband like some fishy-smelling pistol, and ran after him, not sure whether the attack that had come from behind had been meant for me or for him. I assumed me. Being the Iblis did put a big target on my back, but honestly I’d had that target as an imp too. I’d pissed a lot of demons off in my short life. No surprise that there was an occasional attack on my life.

  But if that were the case, I would have expected Gimlet to hide behind the rack of Space-Needle-emblazoned trucker hats and let whatever demon was behind me burn me to a crisp while he stayed safely out of the way.

  But why would a demon try to incinerate a Low? And what Low in his right mind would go taking off after the attacker who had enough power to kill him with a snap of his claws? So I chased Gimlet who was chasing a tall, leathery-skinned, snake-faced demon, not because I particularly cared whether the Low lived or died, but because I really wanted to see this uneven, and probably short, fight.

  I caught up with Gimlet just as the fire demon rounded a corner. By the time we’d rounded the same corner, the demon was nowhere to be seen.

  “You go left and I’ll go right,” Gimlet told me, taking off before I could reply.

  I headed left, figuring that the demon hadn’t gone straight ahead or we would have seen him. Unless he had an invisibility spell or something. In that case, Gimlet and I would dash around like idiots for the next ten or fifteen minutes then return empty-handed.

  I caught sight of a tail ahead and put on a burst of speed, pulling my sword from the ether. Good thing it was me catching this guy. As much as I distrusted Gimlet, I really didn’t want to see him burned to a crisp and dead because he’d rashly taken on a demon far above his skill level.

  The fire demon rounded another corner and finding himself in a dead-end alley, jumped to climb the back fence. I jumped as well, dismissing my sword so I could wrap both hands around his scaled tail and pull with every bit of my weight. He scrabbled onto the fence with his back legs, his front claws digging frantically into the top. I hung like dead weight, as he stretched downward, his claws splintering the wood as he slowly lost the battle to get over the top. His body trembled, then suddenly he let go. We both plunged downward, me hitting the blacktop first with him a heavy heap on top.

  My breath left my lungs in a whoosh, and my vision blurred from the back of my head slamming onto the pavement, but I still managed to hold on to the demon’s tail, even when he got to his feet and tried to run for it. He dragged me along for about ten feet while I caught my breath, then tried to pull his tail free. Finally, he spun around and opened his jaws wide, spewing a stream of fire toward me. Obviously the guy didn’t want to burn himself, so he aimed his blast at my legs, away from his tail.

  I squawked and drew my legs up, but I wasn’t fast enough to avoid the fire that burned my jeans off from the knees down and boiled the flesh right off my bones. My boots and feet didn’t fare any better.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, still holding onto his tail with a death grip. “You fucking motherfucker!” It hurt. And I really liked those jeans and boots. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I manifested a set of claws on one hand and jabbed them clear through the demon’s tail and three inches into the pavement below, pinning him in place. That gave me a free hand to summon my sword just in time to deflect a second blast of fire.

  This one was aimed at my upper body. Guess the demon had decided he’d sacrifice his tail to burn me completely. Rather than absorb the fire with my sword, or convert it into something else, like dandelion fluff, I bounced the blast off my blade and back into the demon’s wide-open mouth.

  The look of shock on his face made me laugh. The demon drew in a raspy breath full of his own fire, then began to cough and sputter, black smoke puffing in small clouds from his mouth. I took the opportunity to recreate my legs and feet, well aware that I was now wearing a pair of singed jeans Bermuda shorts and was barefoot.

  Jabbing my sword through his tail, I pulled my claws free and stood, confident that my sword would hold the demon in place during my interrogation. He continued to cough, giving up on escape after a few futile attempts to yank free from my sword.

  “Who do you work for?” I demanded, not bothering with any of the lesser questions like why was he trying to kill me, or why had he returned to Seattle. This had to have been the demon who’d blown up two cars and a building next to the gate, as well as lured Humiel to his death. He fit the gate guardian’s description to a “T” and I doubted there were two mid-level demons with snakelike forms and an affinity for fire running around the Pacific Northwest.

  Just to make sure I reached out with my spirit-self, amused by his wide-eyed look of alarm as I felt him up. Yep. Same demon energy as that burnt patch by the gateway. I would have recognized the guy by that alone.

  “Fuck you,” he snarled, recovering from his shock at being felt up by an imp. Then he coughed some more.

  I wiggled the sword impaling his tail and heard him yelp between coughs. “Who do you work for?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Whose household are you in?”

  He hesitated and I gave the sword another wiggle.

  “Caramort’s.”

  I searched my memory and in the recesses found a Caramort who was a mid-level warmonger up in Eresh. No big deal. Not much higher than this guy in the hierarchy. Which meant this was either a merging of households, such as for a breeding contract, or a temporary arrangement in return for a favor. Either way, the Caramort I remember couldn’t be turning seven enforcers to sand.

  And he sure as fuck was no Samael.

  “And whose household is Caramort in?”

  “No one’s.”

  He wasn’t lying. Was this guy freelancing, or perhaps Caramort loaned him out to some Ancient? I remembered the conversation I’d had with Mestal a few months back. He’d mentioned an army of demons, but I’d assumed he’d been mistaken, that the rumor mill had turned the army Remiel and the other Ancients had put together to take Aaru and confused it with one that was supposed to come here. But maybe there were two armies, and two Ancients with very different agendas.

  “Why are you here? Why are you in Seattle, and who is having you lure enforcers into a trap?”

  Something flickered in the dark recesses of the demon’s beady little eyes. It was fear—there, then gone and replaced with defiance.

  “I’m here on vacation. That’s it. A demon has a right to vacation. I don’t care what title you’re using, or what fucking sword you’re carrying, you’ve got no business stopping any demon from doing whatever the fuck he wants.”

  I moved in closer. “Actually I do. And if I tell you to keep your ass in Hel, your buttocks better be on the other side of the gate, or it’s you who is going to end up a pile of sand on the pavement.”

  He shivered. “You can’t do that. Not many angels can do that. Not many Ancients can do that. It isn’t something an imp can do, wings or not.”

  I revealed those wings and spread them wide. “Try me, fuckface. Now once more, who had you lure that enforcer? Who killed him and the others?”

  Hate filled his eyes and he twisted his weird snaky mouth up into a sneer. “He’ll kill you. Sword, title, doesn’t matter. He’s the only one we’ll follow. He’ll lead us all out of Hel and we’ll sweep through this w
orld, taking whatever we want. It will be ours. No more angels trying to kill us. No more rules about where we can go. We’ll kill the angels, do whatever the fuck we want to the humans and elves. We’ll sit on a throne here. Demons will finally take their rightful place.”

  Fucking idiot. He was a tool, and if he didn’t realize that, then he’d be in for a big shock when one day he found himself dead on the floor, no longer useful. “I’m glad you’ve got these dreams of world domination, buddy. Sounds fun and all that. Maybe I’ll join you. So who is this asshole who is leading you out of Hel like he’s fucking Moses? Which Ancient is it?”

  “He’ll kill you.” The demon grinned. “Maybe he’ll let me kill you. I’d like that.”

  “Who?” I insisted, stepping back to wiggle the sword in his tail once more.

  The demon’s head suddenly toppled from his body, a spray of red bursting from his neck as his body slid to the ground. I stared at the crumpled, bleeding form in amazement, then down at the head with its mouth still open mid-sentence, eyes staring blankly ahead.

  Then I looked at Gimlet, right behind where the demon had just been standing, a shiny axe-looking thingie with an insanely long handle in his hands.

  “What the fuck did you just do?” I’ll admit there was more shock in my voice than anger. I’d honestly forgotten about the Low. Creeping up and whacking this demon’s head clean off his body wasn’t something I’d ever imagined Gimlet doing.

  “A thank-you wouldn’t be out of place, you know. I did just save your life.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You…saved…? We were talking. I was getting information from him. I had the motherfucker’s tail pinned to the asphalt. He wasn’t going to get away, and he sure as fuck wasn’t attacking me.”

  Gimlet blinked his bulging yellow eyes and reached up a fat finger to scratch at his pockmarked nose. “You sure? ’Cause it looked to me like he was about ready to kill you.”

  “I had him fucking pinned with my sword,” I shouted.

  The Low looked down at the dead demon, whose tail was still pinned to the pavement with my sword. “Well, yeah. Now I see that. Couldn’t see it from behind him. He’s a tricky bastard, you know. I really did save your life.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you didn’t know him?”

  Gimlet shrugged. “I don’t. But I know a tricky bastard when I see one, and that demon is tricky. Was tricky. He’s not tricky now because I killed him.”

  He had, lopping the fucker’s head off before the demon had time to safeguard his spirit-self. Nothing had exploded, so I assumed whatever energy the demon had been carrying, it either had been sadly depleted by his activities today, or my sword had absorbed it all. Probably the latter. Or…

  “Where did you get the lance-axe thing?” I asked Gimlet. As far as I knew only Gregory’s and my weapons were sentient, but there were still a whole lot of angel-made swords that were a fuck-ton more lethal than normal human ones. It wasn’t a stretch to think that Gimlet had managed to come across an equally powerful…thing.

  Gimlet drew himself up to his full five-foot-nothing height and glared. “It’s a bardiche.”

  “Fine. Where’d you get the brioche?”

  “Bardiche,” he snapped. “It’s shorter than other polearms, but still is a two-handed weapon. Typically found in Eastern Europe and Russia as early as the fourteenth century, it was more commonly used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The shorter length meant it could not only be used as a midrange weapon, but a close range one as well. Unlike the glaive…”

  My eyes glazed over, much like the dead demon’s, while Gimlet went on and on about bladed weapons and beheadings and some Ivan the Terrible dude, who actually sounded pretty interesting. If he was still around, I’d need to look him up. Any guy saddled with the nickname of “Terrible” was someone I wanted to know. Finally, Gimlet paused to take a much-needed breath and I was able to interrupt him.

  “Where the fuck did you get it? The bard-itchy. Where did you get it?”

  He winced. “Bardiche. There’s a medieval weapons exhibit in a gallery on Spring. Or was it Madison? Yeah, I think it was Madison. I was running, trying to catch the demon, and saw it. Thought I might need a weapon, since I’m a Low and not really equipped to be fighting a fire demon.”

  “And you knew to come back here, how?” I was relieved that the bardy-thing was just a badass human weapon and not anything angelic. Especially not anything that might be an artifact with weird, frightening, unexpected side effects of use.

  He tilted his head and regarded me with those repulsive, bulging eyes. “Figured since I hadn’t caught up with the demon, that he’d gone the other way, so I backtracked. Figured you could use some help. I mean, you’re just an imp, not much better equipped to take down a mid-level demon than I am.”

  I gave him a hard look. “I’m the Iblis. I’ve got the sword.”

  He glanced at the sword. “That doesn’t make you the Iblis.”

  This guy really got on my nerves. “Yes, it does.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He shrugged. “But if you think it does…more power to you, imp.”

  Fuck this Low. Then I thought of all the times the sword had abandoned me, when it hadn’t come when I wanted it or when it had come as something completely useless. I’d still been the Iblis even without the fucking sword. It wasn’t the sword. It wasn’t the spot on the Ruling Council. It was something else. I just couldn’t figure out quite what the something else was.

  Chapter 6

  I sat in my living room, half-empty pizza boxes and bottles of beer everywhere. One of the Lows belched, and the sound was loud enough to nearly rattle the windows. Lux clapped his hands and squealed. The others cheered. A few patted the Low on the back, their smiles full of admiration. Two pounds of somewhat squashed salmon hadn’t gone far, and I had a dozen demons to feed, so I’d ordered delivery while sharing the fish with Gimlet, as promised. Thankfully the pizza shop also had cookies to add to our order.

  “Nice one,” I congratulated the little burping guy, pulling Lux onto my lap out of range of the Xbox controllers. “And now back to the issue at hand.”

  “The demon army thingie. Lots of dead angels. And the Ancient who is killing enforcers and has a faked energy signature that is similar to what Samael’s is rumored to be.” Snip beamed, proud that he’d been able to follow the conversation so far and actually retain it more than five minutes. That’s more than I could say for most of the rest of them who were already discussing a bet over who could eat all of the spices in my kitchen cabinet and not puke.

  “Samael,” Lux intoned.

  “Yes. Your Uncle Samael, who is probably dead and is most definitely not running around killing Grigori enforcers.” I shifted Lux on my lap and handed him my beer. The kid liked beer, and I needed him busy so I could focus.

  “First thing I want to find out is about any possible plot to kill angels,” I told the Lows, raising my voice to be heard over the spice bet and Lux’s noisy slurping. “A whole lot of angels have died recently—burned, run over, exploded, cut up to bits. That sort of thing.”

  Gimlet laughed. “Well, they’re not real smart about things here in the human world. I saw one stuck in an elevator a few weeks ago. Guy couldn’t figure the buttons out, and every time the door opened he waited so long to get out that it nearly closed on him. And then there was the one trying to cross the highway. It was like that Frogger game. Remember that game?”

  None of the Lows remembered that game, but they all stared with admiration at Gimlet, awed by his extensive knowledge and experience in the human world. Those Lows that lived long enough had saved for centuries to afford a brief trip here to vacation. And most of them didn’t live to return to Hel.

  “Then there was the angel who fell down the escalator at Macy’s.” Gimlet doubled over in laughter. “His robe got caught and he nearly strangled to death. Some of them are walking around in robes. Can you believe it? Robes. Like a damned Renaissance painting.�
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  I needed to regain control of the derailed conversation.

  “I’m getting the details on the deaths, and there’s a good chance, as Gimlet alluded, that they’re strictly accidental. Just in case they’re not, I need to know if there are any rumors in Hel of demons killing angels. If this is the work of a demon, or a group of demons, someone’s bragging about it.”

  “And collecting the bounty,” Snip piped up. “There’s a big bounty on angel wings. Not that I’m in any position to be collectin’ on that.”

  I jerked my head around to stare at him in shock, nearly dumping Lux on the floor in the process. Bounty? What bounty? What the fuck was going on in Hel behind my back?

  “Not going to get myself dead trying to take out an angel, you know,” Snip added. “Besides, I’m…uh, I’m kind of attached to an angel and she wouldn’t approve.”

  That elicited a whole bunch of hoots and lewd gestures from the other Lows. Snip turned bright red. Lux paused drinking beer to take it all in, then with a disgusted snort turned back to his Bud Lite.

  “I’m not gonna be killing angels either,” Barf added. “Rather be fucking them. Think I’ll ever fuck an angel? Any of them? One of those gate guardians, maybe? That one in Columbia is kinda hot.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Snip told him, bristling at Barf’s comment. “You’d have to work pretty hard to convince one of them to fuck you, and we all know how you feel about work.”

  Barf pursed his lips. “I might actually work if it meant I’d get to fuck an angel.”

  “Guys!” I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled to gain their attention, trying once more to redirect them. “Bounty? Who is offering a bounty on angel wings? And who has been collecting on that bounty?”

  There was a buzz of conversation between the Lows. The consensus was that no one knew who was offering the bounty. It seemed to be some generally known thing. Since none of the Lows was about to attempt to take on an angel, regardless of the profit, none of them had bothered to find out who was actually paying.