Brimstone Angels

Invadiah’s lip curled. “I thought you were the best? You haven’t noticed the Ashmadai have decided to slaughter an entire cell of the archduchess’s cultists in Neverwinter-an act they claim as retaliation?”

“Of course they claim so,” Rohini said. “The Ashmadai have such fragile, petulant little egos. They’d kill a man for getting mud on their doorstep.”

“The imps reported the lead priestess was tortured at length for information about an orc who was serving them, and hunting warlocks.”

Sairche raised her eyebrows at that. She had a very bad feeling.

Rohini rolled her eyes. “Well, what benefits Asmodeus-”

“This benefits us none at all!” Invadiah shouted. “Glasya is watching. Glasya knows we have slipped. How close are you? And I don’t want to hear your nonsense about caution-we are too late for caution.”

Rohini scowled at Invadiah. “He is with the ones who serve the Sovereignty as we speak. They should be impressed with the potential servitors, and they should give him further information regarding the aboleths which live in the Chasm. And then I will convince him to make the offer. And,” she added with a snarl, “I would be a good deal further if I didn’t have to keep your bastard son and his warlock out of my business.”

Invadiah straightened. “What has Lorcan been doing?”

“Getting his fingers in Neverwinter,” Rohini said, folding her arms over her chest. “Getting in my way. His warlock is a nuisance, but I deferred to your superiority, Lady Invadiah, and merely set her aside for the moment.”

“I see.” Invadiah stormed out the open doors and onto the balcony. “Nemea!” she bellowed. “Aornos! To me now!”

“What are you going to do?” Rohini said. “Have them rend me and rip me and make me say I’m lying? It won’t change facts. In fact, I’d wager if anyone’s responsible for the Ashmadai getting reckless, it’s Lorcan.”

Invadiah backhanded her, knocking Rohini off her feet, just as Nemea and Aornos, fully armored, galloped into the room.

Oh, this is going to solve everything, Sairche thought. She let the invisibility fall.

“Good afternoon, Mother,” she said. Invadiah bared her teeth at her youngest daughter.

“How long have you been skulking in the corner, girl?”

“Long enough to hear that you might like some information about what Lorcan’s been up to.” Sairche fluttered her silvery lashes. “Just a few things you might like to know before you go ahead and kill the succubus.”

Invadiah didn’t reply, but she didn’t reach out to strangle her daughter either, so Sairche assumed she had the floor.

“To begin,” she said, “Lorcan does have a warlock in Neverwinter. I just saw her there. Though I highly doubt she has been much trouble for Rohini. She isn’t a particularly skilled caster.” Rohini glowered at her, still crumpled on the floor. “And then, did I hear you correctly? An orc is tangled up in this?”

Invadiah eyed her stonily and did not answer, but neither did she slap the teeth from Sairche’s mouth.

“I may have seen Lorcan-in fact, a great many may have seen him-the other day, borrowing the Axe of Exigency for an orc he had dragged to Malbolge as punishment for harming that warlock.”

“My Axe of Exigency?” Invadiah said.

“I couldn’t say. Though it does seem likely. It was meant to kill some priest or another for him.” Sairche tipped her head. “So you see, though Rohini speculates, she isn’t lying.”

Invadiah scowled and turned back to Rohini and the shimmering portal. “Where is Lorcan now?” she asked, and it wasn’t until her scowling eyes rolled back to Sairche that her daughter realized the question had been meant for her.

“On Toril,” she said quickly. “Last I saw. In Neverwinter.”

“And the warlock?”

“With him. Though,” Sairche added, “she didn’t seem happy to see him. They might have separated.”

Invadiah nodded, and Sairche could see they were all very lucky indeed that Invadiah didn’t slap the teeth from all of their mouths, and luckier still that they were none of them Lorcan.

“Aornos, Nemea,” Invadiah growled. “Fetch your brother.”

“Your wish, Mother,” Nemea said. “Whole or in parts?”

Invadiah’s scowl deepened. “Whatever you see fit.”

Nemea and Aornos grinned at one another, and Sairche schooled her expression to one of indifference. On some level, she certainly pitied Lorcan, but if he was as clever as he seemed to think he was, he would figure out a way to escape Invadiah’s wrath, and if he wasn’t.…

At least I am not so foolish, Sairche thought with a suppressed giggle.

“You can use the Needle to get in,” Invadiah said. “The rings are in the treasury.”

Sairche fingered the pilfered ring on her chain. “I’ll fetch them for you,” she offered, and she scurried out the door before Invadiah could tell her no.

But she hung back and pressed herself to the hard bone wall beside the door, listening as Invadiah said, “You can have the warlock. Consider her a gift for your good work. Do what you need to get things done.”

“Oh,” Rohini said, and the purr had returned to her voice, “I’ll make very good use of her.” There was a muted flash as the succubus reactivated the portal, and was gone, followed by a few choice insults from the erinyes.

Sairche pursed her lips and waited long enough to mimic a sprint to the treasury and back. Damn it, gods damn it. Rohini didn’t even know the value of what she’d been handed, didn’t even care. Sairche’s plans were ruined.

No. The game’s not over, she thought, slipping back into the room, holding the green stone ring.

“There was only one,” she said apologetically. “I suspect Lorcan has the other.”

Invadiah curled her lip and grabbed the ring roughly from Sairche. She stormed from the room and down the hall to the antechamber, her daughters trailing.

Ahead of the door, she stopped. Sairche ducked to peer around her half-sisters’ knees. Hovering beside the door to the Needle of the Crossroads were two hellwasps, smaller than the ones that had been guarding Invadiah’s chambers.

“Invadiah,” one said. “We are to assist you.”

“Assist me in what?”

“In correcting the error that resulted in the deaths of the queen’s worshipers.”

“I have my agents,” Invadiah replied.

“We are to accompany them,” the hellwasp replied. “The queen commands it, and so we must.”

“It is ill-advised to delay in this manner,” the other hellwasp said, its mandibles clicking in agitation. Or something, Sairche thought, wrinkling her nose. Who knew what the hellwasps felt. “We are ordered and we must follow orders.”

Invadiah grit her teeth a moment. “Very well. Move aside.”

The hellwasps parted, and Invadiah entered the room. As Lorcan had before, she activated the mirror. The surface shimmered and cleared to show Lorcan, skulking through the ruined streets of Neverwinter. Invadiah grabbed Aornos by the arm and hauled her in front of the mirror.

“There, that place. Study it. Fix it in your mind.” She stuffed the other erinyes’s finger into the green stone ring. When Aornos turned away from the mirror, and toward the Needle, it took several long moments of her concentrating to make the portal open.

“Grab hold of your sister’s hand,” Invadiah ordered. “The ring will allow you to carry her through. But no one else.” She turned to where the hellwasps hovered. “And that is where your orders cannot be followed,” she said. “There is no other trigger ring left in the Hells. If Aornos ferries you back and forth, she risks disrupting the portal and-worse-alerting Lorcan.”

“We are prepared,” one of the hellwasps said. “The queen has readied us.”

Its mandibles parted and from its soft, center mouth a third green stone ring protruded, thick with mucus.

Invadiah’s rage was a palpable thing, and Sairche stepped back, into the shadows.

“Very well,” she said tersely.

“We have memorized the spot,” the other hellwasp said. It hovered near to its compatriot and landed in the