Exodus (Imp Series Book 8) (17 page)

Or Ancients. No, on second thought I didn’t need Ancients. Yes, I was positive that they’d love to step foot in Aaru again after their banishment, and they’d love the chance to avenge themselves against old foes. That’s exactly why I didn’t need them. Cocksure bullies would leave when I told them to, happy to come back to their homes in Hel and brag about their exploits. Ancients would want to stay and take over Aaru. That wasn’t in Gregory’s plan and it sure as hell wasn’t in mine either.

“Okay then I need you to make me a list of demons who
would
want to go to Aaru and fight some angels. Go ahead and contact them on my behalf. Let me know who’s interested.”

“When is the battle?” Rutter picked his nose as he spoke, flicking dried snot across the room. “Gots to know when the battle is in case they gots a conflict. Schedules matter, you knows.”

“I don’t know when the battle will be. We might only have a moment’s notice. And I’m sure something like this would take priority over a banquet or party.”

Which made me realize Gregory had never told me exactly how he planned for me to get all these demons up to Aaru.
He
couldn’t very well transport them. It was one thing having a crazy imp for a girlfriend, another to be seen letting demons into the angelic homeland. He’d be damned for sure. No, this had to fall on my shoulders. I was leading the army, and I needed to get them to Aaru. But I’d only ever transported myself there, and when flitting back and forth between the human world and Hel I’d only moved at max four elves or half a dozen Lows. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried to teleport a few hundred demons. Even if I managed it, would I be too exhausted to fight or even defend myself?

There was one person who might help me, but we weren’t exactly on good terms anymore. Although he did owe me, and owe me big.

“I’m gonna go see Gareth the Sorcerer,” I told my Lows. “Just as soon as I talk with Leethu.”

“Can’t talk to Leethu,” Snip informed me. “She’s been summoned. Again. Hope she kills that bastard this time.”

“Summoned?” Of all the shitty luck. I needed her to find Uriel, not fulfill some randy sorcerer’s sexual fantasies.

“Yep. I was right there, sharing a plate of roasted beaks with her and
bam
. Poof. She was gone.” Snip smiled. “At least I got to eat her share of the beaks.”

Well at least I could see Gareth. I stood, then stopped, remembering there was one additional thing on my agenda that I kept forgetting about.

“Hey, do any of you guys know an Ancient named Samael? He’s probably one of the inactive ones who hasn’t woken in thousands of years, but he’d have a big household. Very powerful demon. And very old. Like two billion years or so old.”

They stared at me with big eyes. Hack stepped forward. “We’s don’t associate with Ancients, Mistress. We’s Lows.”

“Yes, I know you don’t associate with them, but you gossip. And you listen. And you take notice of things. That’s how you survive here in Hel as Lows. So what have you heard? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?”

Snip raised his hand. “I don’t know any Ancients named Samael, Mistress, but I know of five Ancients who are not often awake and have both wealth and large households.”

Could it be that Samael had taken a different name while here in Hel? We demons all had multiple names. One of the reasons formalities demanded we list our entire long string of names was to keep from getting us confused from one another. There were many Azs in Hel, but none with all my names, or in the same order. Perhaps he was going by something different now, like Blinky or Rosebud.

“Can you research them? Find out as much as you can about those demons including what part they played in the war. The demon I’m looking for led the army, and once held my sword. He was the first Iblis. See if you can find him.”

Snip cast me a doubtful look with his eight eyes. “Okay, Mistress. I will do my best.”

His best was all I could ask of him. He was a Low, after all. I wished I wasn’t neck-deep in work or I’d do this myself. A Low couldn’t walk up to the door of an Ancient and demand an audience, I could. Well, actually I couldn’t, but that wouldn’t stop me. I might get fireballed. I might get tossed out on my ass. I might get beaten with pointy sticks. But I
might
just find Gregory’s brother. And that was something I truly wanted to do. But later. Because right now I had to speak with a sorcerer.

***

GARETH’S SHOP WAS
in the heart of Dis, just a few blocks from one of my other homes. I’d stopped in to deliver the same message to the Lows that lived there as I had in my other home, then made my way to the shop. Just as when I’d been there the last time, there were rings upon rings of wards that I needed to make my way through, pausing as I cleared each one to wait for the next. This was a pain in the ass. It’s a wonder Gareth had any customers at all if they had to go through all this shit each time they wanted to buy something. He was good, though. He was the only high level sorcerer in Dis, and for some things a mage just wouldn’t do.

“What’s up with the security?” I asked him once I was finally in the shop. Gareth was clearing the bark from some birch staves, his bald head glistening with sweat. The shop was magically cooled, but even in the evening, Dis’s intense heat was hard to counter.

“Told you. Got a problem with thieves. Even with the security system, I still have to lock the chicken wands up in the back.”

I’d expected the sorcerer’s gruff tone given what had happened the last time we’d met. He’d called in his favors, and I’d sort-of retrieved the stolen gem, but I’d also had to threaten him about making such an incredibly stupid item ever again. Not that he could manage a device like that level-up gem without elven assistance—something I doubt he’d get even if he wanted it, given the elven exodus.

“Well as tempting as a chicken wand sounds, I’m here for something else,” I told him.

He kept peeling the bark, eyes fixed on his work. “Got coin?”

I winced, missing our friendship. There would be no work on credit for me, or work in return for future favors. It was payment up front or nothing. “Yes I have coin.”

Gareth set aside the half-finished stave. I noticed he didn’t put down the knife. “So, what do you want?”

“Offensive weaponry. I’m not sure quantity, but I’m guessing to outfit one to two hundred demons. I’ll also need to see if you have some way to do a mass transport.”

“Like Kirby’s marble? You used that last time.”

He didn’t bat an eye about my request for weapons or the quantity. Odd.

“No, I don’t think that will work. Or elf buttons. I can teleport, I just don’t think I can teleport hundreds of demons at once.”

“Open a gateway.” He picked up the birch staff once more.

“If I knew how, I would. Got any elven friends with that skill?” I knew many elves had the ability to open small gateways to travel short distances in Hel, but the elven traps were the work of multiple highly-skilled elves. I’m sure the gateways they were opening to facilitate their migration were just as difficult.

“I have a few elven friends, but none who can open gateways.” He gave the staff a few swipes with the knife, then set it aside again. “Why the army? Are you finally going to take charge of Hel?”

Uh, no. Why the fuck would I want to do that? We demons all got along fine in the anarchy that was Hel. There was no need for me to kick the hornet’s nest on that one.

“Nope. We’re going up to Aaru to kick some angel ass. Should be great fun.”

Gareth’s eyes almost left his head. “Are you joking? You’re trying to take back Aaru? With only two hundred or so demons?”

“We’re not trying to take it back. No demon in their right mind would want to live in Aaru. Well, except for the Ancients and I doubt they’re in full possession of their brain matter. We just want to pop in there, fight a bunch of angels, then come back to Hel.”

He shook his head. “Imps.”

“Well, I’m hoping to get more than imps. Some war demons would be ideal, but I’ll take what I can get. So…weaponry?”

“I’ve got some here and there,” he hedged. “What do you need to fight an angel?”

Damn. “Uhhh, the same thing you’d need to fight a demon?”

Gareth sighed. “Fire weapons? Incendiary devices? Nets? Acid vials? What are the environmental conditions in Aaru? It wouldn’t do you any good to be launching fireballs in a windstorm, or a place with no oxygen.”

Oh holy crap. I’d completely forgotten one very vital fact about Aaru. Material goods didn’t last long there. I wasn’t sure we could get in and out fast enough. Disintegrating weapons wouldn’t be a good thing. And no, I had no idea if there was oxygen there or not. I tried to remember the times I’d been there in physical form and didn’t recall gasping for air like a beached fish. Of course, that didn’t mean there was enough to support a fireball.

“Maybe nix the fire weapons and go with bladed ones. Knives and swords. Axes and hammers. Staff and wand. Although I’m not sure magic is going to work there either. Maybe we can just bash the angels over the head with them.”

“You’re not bashing angels over the head with a wand I slaved for months over,” Gareth argued. “I don’t care if you paid for it or not, that’s just wrong. If you aren’t sure if magic works there, then I’m probably not the one you should be speaking with. As much as I hate to turn business away, you need to go talk to a dwarf. Someone like Stengal Clawhammer.”

Stengal. Yeah. Dwarven weapons were well crafted, sturdy and balanced. Their knives could cut through dragon scales—I knew this personally. I’d accidently stabbed myself with one while in my first form and bled like a stuck wistral all over the place.

“Thanks,” I told Gareth. “So while I’m here, can I buy a couple chicken wands?”

***

STENGAL CLAWHAMMER WAS
old, even for a dwarf. He looked like someone had stuck an apple in a dehydrator then jammed it on top of a beheaded garden gnome. I could barely make out his eyes in the midst of all the wrinkles. The only hair on his head was a sparse ring of white that wrapped around the back. He made up for the lack with an enormous bush of facial hair that practically dragged on the ground. Behind him in the forge another dwarf worked, this one much younger with a full head of blond hair and a more modest beard. Apprentice? Or perhaps some great, great, great, great grandson?

“What do you need, Imp?” Stengal had that clipped, direct way of speaking that I’d become accustom to from dwarves.

“Weapons.”

Stengal wiggled his sparse eyebrows. “It’s about time you did something about those hooligans, although I think you’d be better off with magical weaponry. You’ve already got a fine sword from what I’ve heard. Can’t imagine you’d need a backup.”

I wasn’t sure which hooligans he’d been anxiously awaiting me to take down. The elves? Or had a demon household gotten on his bad side? Or maybe he wanted me to clean house and kill them all.

“I need to outfit an army of several hundred demons so we can go to Aaru and kill some angels.”

The assistant dropped something which clattered loudly on the floor. Stengal spun around to scold him before he turned back to me. “Didn’t you all try that a few million years back? If it didn’t work then, what makes you think it will work now?”

“Well this time we’re fighting
with
a bunch of angels to kill other angels. And we don’t want to stay there. We just want to get in, slice and dice some wings, then come back here.”

Stengal nodded and hummed. “What type of weapons are your demons proficient in? Dagger? Short sword? Axe? Andor makes a darned fine axe, if I do say so myself.”

The blond apprentice grunted his acknowledgment of the compliment.

“Ummm, sword? I really don’t know. And honestly I’m not sure which weapon will work best in Aaru. Physical stuff falls apart there.”

He pursed his lips, exaggerating the dried-up old apple look. “Can I see your sword? I’m assuming since it was made to work in Aaru, anything your army uses will need to be similar in construction.”

I bit my lip and summoned my weapon, hoping that it complied. Sometimes the thing didn’t come to me when I wanted it to. Sometimes it vanished from my hands in the middle of a fight. Sometimes I wound up bringing a rolled-up newspaper to a sword fight.

This time it appeared, and as a sword too. I handed it over to Stengal, not sure how the crazy thing was going to feel about me letting a dwarf paw it.

And paw it he did. Oooing and ahhing the whole time. The sword probably liked that sort of thing. I’d need to remember to pet it and praise it more often. Maybe then it would actually show up when I needed it.

“Nice.” The dwarf handed the sword back. I told it that it was beautiful and smelled nice before sending it away, just in case flattery did have positive results.

Stengal trotted into the back of the shop where the younger dwarf was working on something. They conferred. Try as I might to listen in, I couldn’t hear a thing. I wasn’t sure the dwarves would be able to replicate it since the Iblis weapon was sentient and able to transform into a variety of shapes—some more useful than others. Maybe if he made the swords and I took them to Gareth for enhancement…

Who was I kidding? We had no time for that. I probably didn’t have time for Stengal to make special swords either. If things kept going downhill as fast as they were, I’d be dragging my demon army up to Aaru armed with pitchforks and tree-limbs.

When the dwarf came back he had his helper with him. “Andor thinks he can modify some of our existing weaponry so it doesn’t fall apart in Aaru. That’s about the best we can do. Like all dwarven weapons, it will be resistant to demon magic. I’m assuming it will likewise be resistant to angelic magic.”

Holy crap. I’d never used dwarven weapons, so I’d never thought them any more than normal steel. I should have known. Dwarves had some innate ability to deaden our abilities, our “magic,” at will. That’s why they made such good foster parents for demon young. If a warmonger infant started to form a blast of energy, they dissipated it. Lightning bolt? Diffused and grounded. If an imp tried to change into a cockroach and sneak away, they’d block the form change. If their weaponry could do the same, well that was pretty stinking amazing.