I push the coats out of my way, step over Lin who is a black and beige streamer at my feet, and climb out of the rack. The imp, like the pixies I can hear rustling in the sudden silence, isn’t caught in the stitch. He digs his black claws into the streamers on either side of him, two of the shoppers still fighting over the puffy coat, leans forward and snarls at me.
“So,” I say, sliding the needle back into my bag. “There are two ways we can do this. There’s the easy way, where you give me your true name and I send you back to Hell.”
I pause for effect. When the imp continues to hiss, I push my sunglasses up onto the top of my head, and unleash the lightning that strikes constantly in my pupils. It leaps into my hands. I hold out two crackling balls of skyfire. “Or there’s the hard way.”
The imp bares his needle-teeth. “Human,” he hisses.
I examine the fireballs in my hands. Raise an eyebrow at the imp. “Well, mostly.”
The imp thrashes his tail around his bowed legs. I’m not an expert in imp body-language, but I think that’s confusion. The imp sweeps his tail around a few more times, then I feel him extend his will towards me. Creeping and greasy, like a fast-food burger. Not a rage demon, a greed demon. The skyfire in my hands leaps in response, showering sparks onto the linoleum. But I cup my fingers around the lightning and let the imp pit his will against mine.
A neon blue glow spills out of the sleeves of my leather jacket. The bindings the greater demon put on me, seared into the skin of my forearms, reacting to the imp’s challenge.
The imp cowers, stretching out its long, hairy arms, claws scrabbling across the floor. “Mistress! Forgive, mistress!”
Uh-huh. I’m still not sure what Jou was, but I know he had huge amounts of power, much more than this little imp. And his bindings carry the stamp of all that power. “So that’ll be option one, then?”
The imp shakes from horns to tail. “Please, mistress. No, mistress.”
“Look.” I transfer both fireballs into one palm, work them around like hand exercisers to keep myself calm and focused. I hate negotiating with the infernal. “You don’t belong here. I get you’ve just come to feed, that you don’t actually mean to cause any harm, but you can’t stay. You’ll cause a riot.”
“Beg, mistress.” The imp cowers and shakes again. “Please, mistress. Beg. Starve. Hurt, mistress.”
I don’t think he’s asking me to starve or hurt him. I think he’s trying to explain – in limited imp vocabulary – that he’ll be starved and hurt if I send him back. That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been to Hell. It’s not a very nice place. And imps are at the bottom of the pecking order.
I release the lightning globes, twirl my finger so they circle me, creating a ring of fire that protects me against any demonic treachery. Just because I feel kinda sorry for the imp, doesn’t mean I trust him.
“Stay, mistress. Keep. Be. Good,” the imp pleads.
No, definitely not. I have more than enough demons in my mind, without having another in my life.
“Sorry, no. But you don’t have to go back to where you’ll be hurt, either. I can send you back to a . . . good place.”
Well, a not-so-terrifying place.
The imp creeps across the floor towards me, clacking its claws along the linoleum like a crab. “Good, mistress?”
“Yeah.” That’s what Jou promised me, at any rate. That it could be a place I would be happy. That it would be a place I could call home. And he never lied to me, not until the very end. I wave the balls of lightning out of my way and kneel so I’m nose to beak with the imp. I offer him my finger. “Here. Bite. Not too hard, please.”
The imp cowers and shakes its horned head, but when I hold my finger out insistently, finally stretches its neck and clamps its bony black beak down on my finger.
I wince and pull my finger away once I feel the skin break. I flex the wounded digit, working it until there’s a good amount of blood smeared on my finger. Then I draw a sigil on the imp’s forehead. Between its horns. A sigil that Jou drew all over my skin while he was making love to me. His true-name. He never said it out loud, but I memorized the feel of it, and I draw it now from flesh-memory, in four quick strokes.
When I’m done I straighten up and stick my finger in my mouth. Closing the wounds with power and my tongue, I swallow the sharp copper of my blood. So different from the dark-treacle of demon blood. “That’s it,” I tell the imp. “Jou will know I sent you. He’ll be . . . nice to you.” Or I hope he will. He’s probably still not very happy with me. If he remembers me at all; I can’t tell since he’s stopped speaking into my mind. But I don’t think he’ll punish the imp just because I sent him. Jou’s not like that. He’s fairer than that. Fairer than I was.
“Thank, mistress.”
“You’re welcome. You ready?”
The imp nods. I squat down and put my hands flat on the floor. Reach for my Element. With my blood on the imp, I don’t need his true-name to send him back to Hell. As soon as the warmth and strength of Earth surges up through my palms, I reach
