The imp’s expression remained unreadable, but he put aside the scroll he’d been perusing and gave us his full attention. “I gather from your pallor that the damage to the human was undone, and so I assume the victim was your favored servant. Tell me, Nigellus... why was dear old Edward staying in the titheling village in the first place?”
“To protect my father,” I said before Nigellus could answer. “From Myrial.”
Baalazar raised a brow. “You feared reprisal against your kin for your attack on Myrial at the gate to Earth?”
I gritted my teeth. “I feared that Myrial would try to do what she’d been trying to do for weeks—bind my father’s soul against his will. Especially since I wasn’t around to protect him myself, after Myrial attacked me at the gate. She tried to draw away my animus and weaken me, so I fled to Earth after tossing a handful of salt in her face. In self-defense.”
The imp’s stone-gray eyes bored into me. “That is a considerably different accounting of events than Myrial gives.”
I scowled. “Yeah? Well, we’re talking about the same demon who took a dump all over the treaty with the Fae. I don’t get the impression honor is a really big thing for her.”
Part of me was surprised Nigellus had let me run my mouth for so long without shutting me down, but he cleared his throat in the rather awkward silence that followed.
“Honor isn’t really a demonic concept,” he said. “But the important point is that a demon entered the dwelling occupied by Zorah’s father and my human servant, killing the latter as he attempted to protect the former. Both of the men identified Myrial as the culprit. That is sufficient basis for a formal investigation to take place.”
“And for additional guards to keep them both safe,” I added quickly.
Baalazar’s gray-mottled chest lifted and lowered in a sigh. “Very well. I’ll summon the other members of the Council. No doubt they’ll wish to hear of this.”
He rose and crossed to an irregularly shaped piece of metal hanging from a frame next to the wall. It was carved with esoteric symbols, and I’d taken it for art, but I hadn’t noticed the mallet hanging next to it on a hook. Baalazar struck the gong several times in a steady rhythm. Rather than a harsh metallic clang, though, the gong produced a low, barely audible noise that resonated in my chest.
It felt like standing too close to the bass speakers at a rock concert. Even the stone walls seemed to vibrate, and something inside my succubus nature whispered, magic. In the absence of the cell phone towers I’d teased Nigellus about on my first journey to Hell, it appeared the demons utilized other methods for communicating over long distances.
“The rest of the Council will convene when they are able,” Baalazar said as he hung the mallet back on its hook. “In the meantime, perhaps you’d care to relate any other details surrounding the alleged attack.”
THIRTEEN
HOURS LATER, I WAS exhausted from covering the same ground over and over to a panel of stony-faced demons. On the positive side, our request for additional guards to protect Dad and Edward from future attacks had been granted. On the negative side, it was clear that a number of council members had already been swayed to Myrial’s side after her complaint against me for my so-called assault on her.
My throat was dry from arguing, and I felt no sense of having made any real headway. It irked me that Nigellus had been unwilling to expand the complaint to encompass the attack on Rans at the nightclub in St. Louis, but I supposed all of the evidence for that one was circumstantial. I hadn’t even held onto the silver bullets afterward.
At least there were corroborating witnesses to the attack on Edward and my father.
As the demons made final arrangements for a formal session the following evening to hear testimony from the victims, my thoughts strayed to Rans—as they seemed to so often these days. He was probably furious with me. I’d be furious with him, if he’d leapt up and barreled off to some potentially dangerous situation where I couldn’t follow. And if he’d done so in the company of a demon who’d already betrayed him, no less.
Yeah... I was going to be stuck in the doghouse over that one, I was sure. And the worst part was, I kind of deserved it.
The unforgiving sun was already baking heat into Hell’s stony ground when Nigellus finally dropped me off at the titheling village. He left immediately to return to the cliff caves for more arguing, but I was relieved to find that in one respect at least, the Council hadn’t dawdled—two guards now stood in front of my father’s hut. I recognized one of them from my many trips to Hell’s gate when I’d last been here. In fact, he was one of the guards who’d been posted the night I’d gotten in my little tussle with Myrial and fled to Earth.
Which was... a bit awkward, actually.
I cleared my throat and waggled my fingers in greeting. “Erm... hi again. Thanks for coming so quickly.”
The guard raised an unimpressed eyebrow, his expression remaining cool.
I plowed ahead. “And, uh, thanks for keeping Myrial from following me to Earth after that mess at the gate a few days ago. She probably would have killed me if you hadn’t stopped her. And... you should know that I only threw salt at her in self-defense, by the way.”
The demon lowered his eyebrow. “Oh? That’s not how Myrial tells it.” He paused before continuing, “Though it’s true she seemed poised to do something unwise if we let her follow you through the gate. That’s why we detained her.”
My lips pulled into a frown. It was easy to forget how close I’d been to
