“Uncle Trevor, I want a tea set and Mommy won't get it for me,” Lesya said in accusation.
“Is that right?” Trevor asked with a chuckle.
I lifted a brow at Lesya, and she deflated.
“But I can be patient,” Lesya muttered.
“That's good,” Trevor said. “Because impatient lions make poor hunters.”
Lesya seemed to consider this; pursing her lips in thought. Then she declared, “I want a tea set, not an antelope.”
I burst into laughter at Trevor's pained expression.
“You've inherited your mother's impertinence; that's for sure,” Trevor exclaimed.
“What's im-pert-nants?” Lesya asked suspiciously.
“Being sassy with your uncles,” Trevor said as he tapped her nose.
“I'm impertnants!” Lesya declared.
“Or something like zat,” Kirill said with a smirk.
“Is everyone back?” I asked Trevor.
“Yep; they're all waiting for you.” Trevor nodded his head back toward the dining hall.
“I'll take Lesya upstairs,” Kirill said and headed out.
“But I wanna stay,” Lesya said.
“Nyet; zis is not conversation for little lion princess; no matter how impertinent she is,” Kirill declared as he pushed open the swinging door.
A chorus of greetings directed at my daughter erupted; only slightly muted when the door shut. I smiled and shook my head; Lesya would doubtless ask every one of her aunts and uncles for a tea set, and she'd wind up with twenty of them this Christmas. It would serve her right.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Trevor as we followed Kirill and Lesya into the dining hall.
The dining hall of Pride Palace was gigantic; both in length and height. It wasn't all that wide; just enough to accommodate sideboards beneath the windows on the right, the width of the dining table in the center, and a sitting area with a few chairs before the fireplace on the left. But it was at least a hundred-fifty feet long and three times that high. Wooden beams arched across the ceiling—making it feel as if it were domed when it wasn't—and the arches were mimicked in the tops of the large windows that ran the length of the right side.
Velvet maroon curtains were pulled back in heavy swaths from the windows with golden tassels. I'd done a bit of redecorating for the holidays; changing some of the fabric colors to deeper tones that would be appropriate for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I hadn't added any seasonal knickknacks; the only things on the mantle above the fireplace were a painting that Trevor had given me and a gold, Japanese, cat statue that was a gift from Amaterasu.
The table ran the length of the room and had some massive candelabras set along its center—wrought-iron creations that went with the Old World theme—to fill some of that vertical space as well as the horizontal, but that's all that was on them. No festive garlands or anything like that decorated the expanse; I hadn't got to it yet. Beneath the table and its iron behemoths was a rug that was even larger, and there was a much smaller, matching one set beneath the chairs before the fire. The clicking of my shoes on the tiled kitchen floor dulled a little when I hit the stone of the dining hall, and then muted completely on the carpet.
“No physical traces,” Trevor said. “But we got some interesting information regarding the exorcism.”
“Really?” I watched Kirill take Lesya from the room; waiting for her to be out of hearing range before I asked, “What did you guys find out?”
“I interviewed Donato's wife,” Thor said. “She didn't believe in possession, and never attempted to contact the Catholic Church for help.”
“She didn't contact the Church?” Horus asked. “Then who performed the exorcism?”
“She said that she had finally accepted that her husband was possessed, and she was about to visit the local church for assistance when there was a knock on their door,” Thor said.
“Was it ominous?” I asked with a smirk at Horus.
Thor blinked in surprise. “Actually, she said it seemed portentous.”
My smile faded.
“Was there an angel at her door?” Pan asked. “A Scottish angel?”
“An angel?” Azrael growled. “Who saw an angel?”
“The Bianchi mother said that God had sent an angel to help her daughter,” Toby explained. “But she may have just been projecting her relief into a spiritual concept.”
“Isa, Donato's wife, didn't use the word angel,” Thor said. “But she did say that the man who exorcised Donato's demon was ethereal in his attractiveness. She said he had dark looks but there was a radiance about him.”
“Did she get his name?” Horus asked.
“Reginald Mackenzie,” Thor said.
My team exchanged glances and groans just as Kirill came back into the room—sans Lesya.
“Vhat's happened?” Kirill asked.
“It appears that a Scottish angel is killing demons,” Pan declared. Then he looked back at the rest of us. “Does this mean we're going to Scotland?”
“Zere are Scottish angels?” Kirill asked skeptically.
“No,” Azrael said. “There aren't. Angels are just angels; no matter what ethnicity they resemble. They have angelic names. So, if this is an angel, he's using a false name—for obvious reasons. He couldn't very well say his name was the Archangel Gabriel.”
“Do you think it's Gabriel?” I asked; instantly on edge.
Gabriel had done some messed up things; one of them was kidnapping me. Lucifer had led the Army of Hell into the Seventh Heaven so Azrael could save me from him.
“I wouldn't put it past him.” Azrael shared a grim look with me. “You know how bitter he's been.”
“But how would he manage it?” I asked.
“That's another thing,” Thor said. “Isa said that Reginald had a golden vial which he held to her husband's lips. She said the demon was exorcised into the vial, which Reginald stoppered up and took with him.”
“A vial,” I whispered. “That sounds familiar.”
“It reminds me of those Voodoo jars,” Odin said. “Do you remember, Vervain?”
