Brimborion looks fairly human except he’s as skinny as a grasshopper, with limbs and fingers long enough to pluck a quarter from the bottom of a fifth of Jack. He dresses in dark high-collar suits like he fell out of a Dickens story right onto the stick up his ass. He also wears round wire-rim glasses. I think it’s those glasses that really make me hate him. What a weird choice for an affectation. I mean, whoever heard of a nearsighted angel?
I say, “How did you even get in here?”
He rolls his eyes heavenward.
“You mean those pretty doodads you scratched above the doors? I’m your personal assistant. I need to be able to follow you anywhere.”
He unbuttons his shirt and pulls out a heavy gold talisman hanging from a chain around his neck.
“I have a passkey. It opens any door in the palace no matter how many wards or enchantments are on it.”
“Nice. Where can I get one?”
“I’m afraid this is the only one.”
“Maybe I should take it.”
“Feel free, my lord,” he says. “And don’t worry. I’ll do my best to suppress the scandal.”
“What scandal?”
“The one about how the Lord of the Underworld, the Archfiend, the Great Beast is afraid of a glorified secretary. I hate to think what your enemies would make of that.”
I want to stack cinder blocks on this four-eyed fuckpop until he explodes. He opens his eyes a tiny bit wider behind the fake glass in his fake glasses and stares.
But the little prick has a point. Until I’m up to Samael’s full strength, I don’t want ambitious peasants storming the castle with pitchforks and torches.
I reach for the letters and messages, closing my hand around his. I squeeze. Not hard enough to break bone. Just enough to remind him I could if I wanted.
I let up and take my messages. He massages his fingers but doesn’t say anything.
“Learn to knock and we can go back to being BFFs. Got it?”
“Of course, my lord.”
He does a tiny bow and leaves.
I remember when I was out drinking with Vidocq in L.A. he introduced me to another old-time thief. He said the best way to deal with lock pickers is the simplest. You take all the furniture you can and stack it up so it’s perfectly balanced against the top of the door. Anyone who tries to get in will get a dresser or a rocking chair on their head. If you want to fancy things up, you can add a bucket of lye dissolved in water. The real trick is remembering to tell the maid before she comes in the next morning.
I take the na’at out of the dresser and put it under the pillows at the head of the bed. Stacking furniture sounds like too much work.
I toss the messages in the fireplace. Infernal bureaucrats can kiss my ass.
I head down to the library.
This is my Fort Knox, my office, and my panic room. I’ve laid the heaviest protective hoodoo I know around this place. Of all the hideouts I ever thought of running to when things got weird, a library was right behind a leper colony
