Kingdom of Lies (Imp Series Book 7) (27 page)

The angel huffed. “If you’re any example of what the elves have become, the humans are better off without you.”

I wasn’t a fool, and neither was Eloa. She might have a thing for Gregory, flirt with him every chance she got, but I was starting to dig this angel.

“So were you only planning on sharing the coin with Gareth, or the value of the property and human currency as well?”

The elf cast me a wary look then focused his gaze down at the maple floor.

“The human sorcerer would have no need for the things of this world, as he intends to remain in Hel. I planned on giving him all of the eighty thousand coin for his share of the profits.”

I got a weird feeling that Swifty didn’t care about the coin, and that there was more behind his actions than simple greed.

The thought of that particular sin reminded me of Avarnak and the yet-unknown limits of his powers. “Gareth says the gem was originally meant to increase the effect of a spell, but that you modified it. Tell me what you did.”

Swifty’s eyes met mine for a brief moment before his gaze slid back to the floor. His shoulders tensed. “I was able to shift the purpose so that instead of increasing the power of a spell, it increased the power of a spell caster.”

“But it doesn’t just work on spell casters, does it? What does it do, Swiftherian?”

His hands curled into tight fists against the floor. “I told you. It increases the power of the spell caster. Doesn’t matter if the caster is a mage or not as long as they are the one who activates the gem.”

“And how exactly does that work? Because the last time I checked, domestic felines couldn’t cast spells, and yet there’s one running around Hel that can throw heavy objects and shoot laser beams from his eyes.”

“The activation is the same as it has always been. Hold the gem, communicate your intent to use it either aloud or silently, then concentrate on the power you wish to elevate.”

I hastily stuck the gem in my pocket, trying to remember whether I’d inadvertently done either of those things. Probably not. I assumed I’d know if I started slicing shit in two with my eyeballs.

“So, you’re telling me that a kitten without opposable thumbs managed to hold the gem then communicate the desire to become super-powerful Destructo Kitty?”

Swifty shrugged.

“Gareth says it has six charges. Why didn’t you try it on yourself?” His head jerked up, and I saw a flash of fear cross his face before he managed to put the sneer back in place. “Forget being reinstated with your kingdom; you could rule your kingdom. You could rule the entirety of the United Elven Kingdoms. You could rule all of Hel. But instead, you sold it for some measly coin, human currency, and a worthless deed.”

“I have no desire to rule in Hel. I only wish to live here, where I can guide and assist the humans in their positive evolution.”

“By forcibly evicting them from their homes? Or maybe you intended to conduct your humanitarian pursuits from within the penal system?”

“They were squatters.” He snarled, ignoring the last of my questions. “I received ownership of that house and land as part of the sale and arrived to find them unwilling to vacate. How was I to know that demon lied and forged the documents?”

Idiot. He’d lived his whole life next to a bunch of demons and never realized we lied? Heck, I was a demon, and I would never have conducted a land transfer without a title search.

“What do you want to do with him?” Eloa’s foot twitched as if she longed to plant it firmly in the elf’s backside.

What to do with Swifty? I didn’t want to return him to Hel just yet, and I certainly didn’t want him in my house, even if I’d had an extra bedroom. It had been bad enough having an angel duct taped and collared in my basement; I really didn’t want an elf down there.

“Take him back to jail.”

“What?” the elf shrieked. “No!”

His response assured me that I had truly come up with a brilliant idea. “We can go get him if we need to. He’s not likely to escape, given what you’ve told me. It’s the perfect place for him to learn about these humans he’s supposedly here to help.”

Eloa grinned at me. “Given that you are responsible for raising the FICO scores of the humans, Iblis, I think that’s an excellent idea. This elf can redeem himself by serving you in that noble purpose. The human jails are filled with those who desperately need redemption.”

I waved a hand. “Then let’s proceed. Make it so and all that. Swiftherian, you are to spend your incarceration period raising the vibration levels of the human criminals. Humans don’t live very long, and their punishment terms here are woefully short and lacking in torture, so this should practically be a vacation for you. Once you’ve done your time in the county lockup, we’ll decide what other humanitarian services you can render.”

“Such an excellent idea, Iblis,” Eloa agreed. “I’m so glad this elf took the initiative to cross the gates and selflessly offer his talents for the betterment of humanity.”

“Me too.” I watched as Eloa took the protesting Swifty back to jail.

A
varnak?” Terrelle took a bite of shrimp fried rice while she pondered the situation. “Avarnak killed Pamersiel and two angels?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Laser beams, a huge cage of obsidian, exploding an ancient demon, and all that shit.”

“Huh.” She took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. Weirdo. It was as if none of this fazed her in the least. “I can see him going after Pamersiel if he had the chance. They’d had a feud for ages, but of course Avarnak couldn’t do anything about it. You can be pissed at an ancient all you want, but taking any action against one is suicide.”

“So what happened between the two of them to cause the feud?” If I understood what sort of thing drove Avarnak to action, I might have an idea what he intended to do here. And maybe stop him before he did it—whatever
it
was.

“Pamersiel asked Avarnak to do a retrieval job. The usual stuff: raid some demon’s house, take whatever crap Pamersiel felt had been stolen, and give it back.”

“He asked a greed demon to do this?” Not exactly my choice as a burglar. With a greed demon, your chances of ever seeing them again, let alone getting the item from them, were slim. Anything worth having was usually something they wanted to keep for themselves.

“Yeah, evidently there was some implication that a one-time breeding contract would be offered once the item was returned.”

Whoa, that was big. Most of the ancients didn’t breed anymore. They’d done their thing millions of years ago, and now it was up to us young’uns to keep the demonic line going. A breeding contract with an ancient, even a one-time occurrence, would do a lot to enhance a demon’s status. I imagined for a moment what sort of offspring I could create with an ancient demon. Wow, that would be cool. Even I, with my reluctance to even consider breeding, would totally jump on that opportunity.

Gregory cleared his throat. I glanced over to see him with arms folded, eyeing me as if he’d caught me ogling the gate guardian. I wondered how much of my thoughts he could read and tried to save the situation.

“Ick. Yuck. I mean, more power to the guy, but I personally would never, in millions of years, consider such a thing. Phooey. Bleck.”

I think I overdid it a bit, but Gregory nodded and grabbed a pair of chopsticks, carefully picking at the room-temperature bean curd.

Terrelle laughed, covering her mouth with a napkin. “Yeah, well, the rest of us lowly demons without feathered wings and an angelic main squeeze would totally hit that.”

“So... did he? I mean Pamersiel and Avarnak?”

“No. I’m sure you won’t be terribly surprised to learn it was all a big misunderstanding, and Pamersiel had meant a breeding incident with some member of his household instead. Avarnak was insulted. Little things started to go missing at Pamersiel’s house. One of his household was caught and implicated Avarnak. Then it came to light that Avarnak had stolen far more than he’d admitted to, but had only told Pamersiel about and handed over a few of the items. Pamersiel got pissed and torched Avarnak’s house with about half his household trapped inside.”

And thus a feud begins. It was a common story, and I could see Avarnak holding a grudge for all these centuries, but this kind of convoluted murder plan seemed excessive.

“How did Avarnak know about the gem? I’d heard no rumors it was up for sale on the black-market. Swifty must have approached him directly.”

Terrelle scooped up more fried rice. “Could be. This wasn’t the usual feud. Avarnak took the whole thing personally. He’d banked heavily on the proposed breeding incident. To be pushed off on some household member was humiliating. Don’t get me wrong—Avarnak likes to collect stuff just as much as the next greed demon, but associations, connections, and status are what really motivate him. To have a connection with Pamersiel, an ancient demon, would be the most valuable association of his life.”

Her comments gave me an idea—a horrible idea. “So with Pamersiel dead, who is the next highest ancient? One that’s active and still might consider a breeding contract if the right demon were to present him or herself.”

“Thinking of creating some offspring, Cockroach?” Gregory asked. I shivered at his tone, and my thoughts went to what sort of angel we could form together.

“I’ll let you know the moment my ovaries start screaming for a baby daddy.” Which would be at least another thousand years or so. Aaru wasn’t ready to face the prospect of angels and demons having civil discourse, let alone baby making.

“Shit if I know. Any one of the ancients might think of a breeding incidence if the right candidate were to present himself. Or maybe not. They’re not exactly active in Hel these days,” Terrelle grabbed a bite of bean curd from Gregory. I held my breath, wondering how my angel would react to food theft. Instead of a smackdown, Gregory smiled indulgently and extended the container—just like demons do to young. Huh, maybe he would make a good baby daddy.

“Okay, let’s think about this one,” I mused. “How would a demon go about impressing any of the ancients to such a degree that they’d be forming offspring before the ink was dry on the breeding contract?”

Terrelle thought as she chewed, swallowed, then took the container from Gregory with a shy smile. “A gift of power?”

“Like laser beams from the eyes and a cage of obsidian?”

Terrelle shook her head. “No. Like evicting the angels from this world and presenting it to an ancient to rule over, like causing a major part of the angelic host to fall. Like an archangel’s head on a platter.”

“I think any of those are a bit above Avarnak’s abilities,” Gregory commented. “Even with the benefit of a magical spell.”

Probably, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. “Let’s think this through. Archangels—Uriel is who knows where, and probably undetectable anyway. Rafi is still in Alaska?” Gregory nodded. “Gabe in Aaru, and you here.”

“So either me or Raphael would be likely targets.” Gregory shook his head and looked to the ceiling. “Should I dash up to Alaska to warn Rafi that a demon shooting laser beams out of his eyes is liable to make an attempt on his life?”

He was so not taking this seriously. “Pamersiel died because he thought Avarnak was an annoying fly. Don’t make the same mistake. I doubt he knows where Rafi is, but you’re an easy target to find. All he needs to do is continue to attack your enforcers, and you’ll come to him. He’s killed two, hurt your gate guardian and left her with a message of defiance. He’s throwing the glove in your face. Eventually you’re going to get pissed off enough to hunt him down.”

“And he’ll be waiting for you,” Terrelle cautioned. “He’s not stupid. He’ll have a trap set, and he’ll count on you underestimating him.”

“Lucky for me, I have been taught the error of underestimating an opponent by a certain imp.” Gregory smiled at me. “Okay, Cockroach. I’ll warn Rafi, and I’ll be proactive about hunting this demon. You do realize this means we’ll have an increased number of otherworldly creatures to round up afterward? The longer we delay closing the gates, the more will come through.”

He was right, but his safety and Rafi’s came first. And I might not care about a bunch of enforcer angels getting ripped to bits, but Gregory did. What he valued was my duty to help protect. Better to neutralize Avarnak before he killed any more Grigori.

“I don’t get it, though.” Terrelle shook her head.

“Get what?”

“Avarnak. Even with the humiliation he suffered, the retaliation on Pamersiel was way over the top. That didn’t happen a few centuries ago; it was nearly two-thousand years. And killing him? The Avarnak I knew of would have just stolen all his shit and left a note behind. He would have only killed Pamersiel in self-defense, not this aggressive attack. He’s a greed demon. They’re sneaky. They play the blame game. They refuse to take any personal responsibility for anything. They don’t do direct confrontation; they just go behind your back and steal your stuff.”

“So? Maybe the increase in power went to his head?”

Terrelle pursed her lips. “Maybe. Still, that’s a major personality shift. Like, a crazy personality shift. And going after archangels or kicking them out of this realm? That’s fucking insane.”

I didn’t know Avarnak. I had no idea if the gem had done more than just given him power. Maybe it had sent him over the edge. It’s not like we’d seen the gem’s effect on anyone else to compare it to. The only other one who’d been subjected to its power had been the kitten.

The kitten.

I picked up my cell phone and called Nyalla.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

“Yep. Your angel sent Beatrix to me, so I took her to the park to feed the ducks, and then we went to the playground and hit the swings and teeter-totters. Do you know, she’s never been on a swing before?”

“Good. Make sure you get her something to eat besides fast-food crap. Take her out for seafood or a decent steak or something. The woman has been living on sweet-and-sour pork for damn near a century.”

“Will do.”

I was so glad she’d decided to come here, and that Gregory had thought to send her directly to Nyalla. This was the perfect assignment to give the human—one that would hopefully help Beatrix heal and would keep my girl safely away from power-mad demons and killer kittens. Which reminded me... .