“A laugh a minute,” J.B. said, his voice hoarse.
Antares threw his head back and guffawed. “You are quite brave for a man about to have his throat slit.”
I dropped my hand from my face and stepped forward. The little match flame inside me roared to about the size of a candle and then sank back. I had no magic. But Antares didn’t need to know that.
“Let him go,” I said again, this time putting the force of my will behind the command. I saw Antares’s face flicker for a moment—confusion? fear?—then return to a smug expression.
“And what,” Antares said silkily, “will you give me in return, little virgin?”
Antares’s compatriots snorted and leered suggestively at me. The sight of them nauseated me more. Antares looked like a Hollywood stereotype of a demon—the red skin, the bat wings, the black claws and horns. His friends, however, looked more like the Thing in the Carpenter movie. One demon was a mass of loose, rubbery gray flesh that oozed from side to side as it paced—I assumed it paced; I couldn’t see anything resembling feet—behind Antares. Underneath the flesh something moved, like millions of maggots were crawling beneath the demon’s skin.
The second demon had a more humanoid form, but it was squat and grossly fat. Its skin was pale and its eyes were a slitted purple. When it opened its mouth to smile at me, I saw blood caking its teeth.
“How about you give me J.B. and I keep Gabriel here from kicking your ass from here to next Tuesday?” I said sweetly.
Antares had been steadfastly avoiding Gabriel’s gaze up to this point, but now he was forced to acknowledge Gabriel’s silent presence beside me. The angel seemed content to let me handle the talking while he did the menacing bodyguard thing.
My demon half brother said nothing for a moment, clearly unsure how to proceed. If he handed over J.B., he might not be humiliated in front of his little buddies. If he didn’t hand over J.B., he would
“I do not fear Azazel’s thrall. He cannot lay a finger on me without endangering his own life or the life of his master,” Antares sneered.
I wondered if that was true. Gabriel had said that my father had sworn an oath in order to save Gabriel’s life, an oath that said Azazel would keep Gabriel from becoming a monster like his father. But did that mean that Gabriel couldn’t physically defend himself from another demon? I didn’t want to appear uncertain or ignorant, so I mustered up my own bravado to match Antares’s.
“So if Gabriel defeats you in combat, you’ll run and tattle?” I tutted. “Not exactly the most demonic response ever.”
If Antares’s face hadn’t already been red, I’m sure that a blush would have risen on his cheeks. His eyes narrowed into slits as he yanked J.B. closer and opened his palm threateningly over J.B.’s neck. I watched, mesmerized by the sharpness of the claws that hovered over J.B.’s pulse.
“I would not have to tattle, as you put it,” Antares hissed. “I would return to my master with the thrall’s entrails as my necklace as well as those of this foolish human.”
“See,” Gabriel murmured for my ears alone. “Same material as always.”
Then he took a step forward, motioning with his hand that I should stay back.
“Regardless of what you believe the outcome might be were we to engage in combat, you know as well as I do that the Accords forbid the spilling of innocent human blood,” Gabriel said. “I do not believe Focalor would welcome the punishment our lord Lucifer would mete out if one of Focalor’s subjects violated the agreement in his name.”
Behind Antares the other demons shifted nervously. The fat one spoke to Antares in a language I didn’t understand. It had an ugly, harsh sound, made worse by the demon’s wet, slurping voice.
Antares barked back at the demon in the same language and it shrank away from his vehemence. He turned back to Gabriel, who had a smug little smile on his face.
“Your friend is smarter than you,” Gabriel said. “Or at least, he has a stronger sense of self- preservation.”
The second demon now joined in the protests of the first. Antares shouted at this one, too, but it didn’t seem to be as easily cowed as its companion. There were a few moments of heated exchange while J.B.’s life hung in the balance.
I clenched my fists at my side and cursed my own powerlessness. If I could summon up another of those starbursts, I could blast Antares into oblivion and that would be the end of it. Of course, having zero control over my power, I would probably blast J.B. into oblivion, too.
“Just wait,” Gabriel murmured, sensing my frustration. “I do not think that bloodshed will be necessary this day.”
The second demon’s voice rose, and then it turned away from Antares. Antares shouted after it, but the second demon ignored him. It moved a few feet away from Antares and called to the fat demon, who hesitated for a moment, clearly unsure what side his bread was buttered on. Antares said something threatening to the fat demon, but it shook its head and ran to the side of the oozing demon.
The oozing demon said a single word in that ugly language, and for the second time that day I saw a rent in the fabric of reality. A dark hole opened out of thin air in front of the oozing demon. All I could see inside it was a swirling vortex of smoke. Then the oozing demon disappeared inside the vortex and the fat demon followed.
Antares wavered for a moment, long enough that the hole began to close a bit. Then he abruptly dropped J.B. to the ground and dove after his companions. The hole closed just as Antares’s barbed tail flicked inside.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Gabriel said.
“What the hell was that thing they used to get away?” I asked as I hurried down the steps to J.B. He attempted to stand but his legs buckled under him. I tried to put my arm under his shoulder to help him up, but he waved me away. I was hurt for a moment by his rejection, until he rolled over and puked on my lawn. Then I was just grateful.
“A portal. Demons and angels use them for ease of travel over long distances,” Gabriel said as we waited for J.B. to pull himself together.
“I saw Ramuell disappear into one of those before I blacked out,” I said.
“Really?” Gabriel asked, intrigued. “A nephilim has no power to open a portal. This certainly lends credence to the notion that Ramuell’s puppet master is one of the fallen, most probably an enemy of Lord Azazel’s. It also explains why Ramuell did not destroy you when you were vulnerable.”
“His master called him home at the wrong moment,” I said.
“Precisely.”
J.B. struggled to his feet, waving off my attempts to help him. “Water,” he croaked.
I crooked a finger at him and bade him follow me inside. Gabriel went ahead of us. Beezle fluttered down from his perch on the roof to land on my shoulder.
“Did you enjoy the show?” I asked mildly.
“The denouement kind of sucked, but up until that point I had high hopes,” Beezle said. He glanced around at J.B., who was staring. “What are you looking at, ape?”
“An ugly little what-the-fuck-are-you?” J.B. answered, following me up the stairs.
I covered my mouth so that Beezle wouldn’t be offended by my snort of laughter, but his stony stare indicated that I hadn’t been very subtle.
“Beezle is a gargoyle. He’s the protector of this house,” I said, when Beezle didn’t deign to answer.
“And the stinky horror-movie monsters? What were those?” he asked as we entered the kitchen. I got a glass of water from the sink faucet and handed it to him. He drank deeply until the glass was empty, and then handed it back to me and said, “More, please.”
I took the glass and refilled it. “Those things on the front lawn were demons, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’ before.”
“If you could have heard my thoughts while that thing was holding on to my jugular, you would have heard a lot of ‘pleases,’ ” he said, and smiled.
I smiled back, and was reminded of how handsome he was. He was always such a flaming jerk it was easy to overlook his positive points.
