Exodus (Imp Series Book 8) (21 page)

Diablo nodded then abruptly teleported, nearly toppling me from the saddle. When we appeared, we were in front of a long winding drive ending at wide metal gates that announced the Maryland Zoo.

“Here? Seriously?”

He nodded. “That groc-erey store would have been too scary to go get food, so hunting is our next choice. Unless there was one of those smaller market things along the way, the elves would have smelled these animals and decided to bring one back.”

Oh hell no. I’d been worried about elves getting plowed over by trucks or arrested when I should have been worried about them shooting a lion in front of a bunch of tourists and dragging it back to my house to eat.

Is it wrong that I was glad they hadn’t made it home with their illegally killed prey? Zoning violations would have been the least of my worries if the cops found my house guests eating a lion from the zoo in my back field.

I tied Diablo to one of the iron gates, fully aware that he could untie himself and go wherever the fuck he wanted. Still it was better than having my horse roaming around Baltimore. Maybe he’d stay put. Or teleport back to his buddies in my pasture, leaving Telly and me to hoof it home.

First stop through the gates was the information center where I shoved Telly in front of me. The woman eyed him curiously. “Costume day is Wednesday.”

“I know.” I didn’t know, I just didn’t care. “Have you seen any other kids, errr, people that look like this? Wearing this costume? I’m supposed to meet a group here and they’re all costumed like this.”

She shook her head slowly, then paused. “There was one. I remember because he tried to steal a bag of cheetah food, then we later caught him climbing in the tortoise enclosure and taking their lettuce leaves. We tried to escort him out of the zoo, but he’s fast and keeps getting away.”

Great. “Any idea where he might be? I’ll get him off the property for you.”

The woman spoke into a walkie-talkie. There was a crackle of noise, then an unintelligible voice. “Over by the lions.”

I ran. Telly ran. Elves are stinking fast, but when I wanted to pour on some demon speed I could keep up. The elf was easy to find. He was balanced on the top of the fencing separating the lion enclosure from the visitors. The only thing between him and the lion was the steep drop, a water-filled ditch, and a half acre of dirt and rock. The tourists watched, fascinated as the elf tight-rope walked along the top of the fence, his balance perfect. I was grateful he didn’t have a bow and arrow to shoot the lion, but that made me wonder what his intentions were. Did he plan on jumping in and wrestling the thing into submission? If so, he was in for a big surprise.

I didn’t get to see the elven massacre. Tully shouted, “Cliey, get down.”

The elf spun about, his eyes wild and crazy. “Ptellia? By the Lady, go back. There are killers in this town. Murderers.”

Like cars and trucks? Or farmers with shotguns? Cliey jumped down from the fence and stumbled, going down on one knee. That’s when I realized that more than mud stained his clothing. He was hurt.

“Did the zoo staff injure you?” I couldn’t imagine it. Attempting to steal a bag of feed would get him kicked out. Climbing into a tortoise enclosure would get him hauled off by the cops. I just couldn’t see the zoo staff catching an elf, let alone stabbing him, or beating the shit out of him.

“No.” He sobbed, staggering to his feet and hugging Tully. “We went farther into the city, worried that hunting was somehow regulated here or that these animals belonged to a human with one of those magical sticks that shoots fire and death.”

“But you were about to try to grab that lion,” I countered. “That does belonged to someone else, and if you’d survived then the humans would have put you in a metal box.”

He shuddered. “I couldn’t return empty handed, especially after losing the other two.” Cliey made a choking noise. “They caught them, and I ran. I was a coward and ran. I couldn’t double my shame by coming back with no food.”

“Who caught them?” Telly’s voice rose in pitch. “Where’s my mother? What happened to her?”

Cliey swallowed a few times and composed himself. “There was a man standing outside a building and when he saw us he shouted for his friends and they chased us. They were fast. I’ve never seen humans that fast, or that strong.”

Olympic sprinters/bodybuilders? But what grudge would they have against a bunch of weirdly dressed, pointy-eared people who didn’t speak English? Why chase them down and beat them up? Or cut them?

“Did you insult them? What did you say to them?” I demanded. All I could come up with was they’d somehow offended the drug dealers on a Baltimore corner and gotten their asses handed to them.

“Nothing,” Cliey squeaked. “I swear we didn’t say a word to them. The guy just looked at us and yelled. Next thing we knew a bunch of them were running after us.”

I rubbed my face, wishing I’d stayed in Aaru. Or in Hel. “Okay, what was the address of the building? Where was it?”

“I’m n-not sure,” Cliey stammered. “I just ran and didn’t pay much attention to directions. The building had a sign was the human language. There was the music coming from the open doorway and the picture of a wine bottle in the window.”

“And they got the other two?” I asked.

Great. Now I needed to scour Baltimore for injured elves. I wondered if I should check the hospital first.

“One.” He swallowed. “He got Swyllia and Lysile stayed to help him. I ran. I’m not a warrior elf. I’m not even a hunter. I carve wooden bowls and platters for everyday use. This…this isn’t the sort of thing I’ve been trained to deal with.”

“Yes, I know.” I closed my eyes and thought for a moment, trying to make a decision. “You go home with Telly here. Well, back to my field home—don’t start thinking of it as your real home because you’re going to be moved in the next day or two. Anyway, go back with Telly, and I’ll look for the other two.”

“I need to find my mother,” Telly protested. “She might be hurt. She might be…dead.”

Oh for fuck sake. He was going to cry. I so didn’t need that. “I’ll find her. Go on back, and tell the others about this so they realize how important it is not to leave the field. I’ll make sure you have food and other supplies. You have to stay put until my Asshole Angel can get Elf Island together for your orientation. That’s what happens when you all don’t know the human world. You have bad run-ins with drug dealers, and almost get eaten by lions.”

Not to mention run over by cars and shot at by farmers.

“I can draw it,” Cliey announced.

I just stared at him, confused. Was he about to do a sketch-artist rendering of their assailants? How the fuck would that help me? I’d be better off posting “have you seen these elves” photos on light poles across the city.

“The sign on the building. I don’t understand this human language, but if I draw the symbols on the sign, then maybe you’ll be able to find it.”

Shit on a stick, this elf was fucking brilliant. I marched the pair back to the eatery area and bought a drawing pad and set of penguin-themed pencils from a souvenir shop, handing them to Cliey. The elf spent a few moments intrigued by how the humans managed to get the pencil lead inside a twig, then began to draw.

It was heavily embellished but when Cliey was finished I could easily make out the letters that made up the establishment’s name.

Bang
. “Are you sure?” I asked, my heart sinking.

“Yes. Well aside from these little curlicues I added on the edges. That’s what the sign looked like.”

Great. Because I was pretty sure that drug dealers didn’t hang out in front of this particular establishment. And it wasn’t humans who’d chased down these elves. It was vampires. This was a club owned by vampires, and there was nothing vampires hated in the world more than elves. Nearly three million years of separation hadn’t dulled their distaste.

Vampires. I’d just promised Telly I’d find his mother. There was a good chance I would, but right now I doubted that either one of those two elves was still alive.

T
here was a doorman in front of Bang. Actually a door-vampire. He had no energy signature as far as I could tell, so I was assuming he was a fairly recent turn. Either way he was big, and he eyed me with a sort of nervous animosity.

“We’re closed.”

“I see that.” I pointed at the door, which in fact
was
closed. “Hear you all had an exciting afternoon. Very exciting. No doubt the other vampires are inside resting because it was so exciting.”

He shifted his weight. “What do you want?”

I walked up to the door and poked at it. He made as though he was about to block me, then thought better of the idea and just stood beside the entrance.

“What a rude way to speak to the Iblis, the leader of the demons.” I poked at the door again. “I think I’d like to go in and talk to your boss. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to open the door.”

“We’re closed.” This time there was a bit of a tremor to his voice.

I felt a twinge of guilt. This poor dude was going to get his ass kicked for allowing me to enter. Not that it was his fault. When a demon wanted in, a demon got in. And that went for an Angel of Chaos too. Well, maybe I didn’t feel too bad for the guy. He did alert the other vampires to the presence of three elves, after all. If he’d kept his big-ass mouth shut, nobody would have gotten hurt. Now I was facing the probable death of two elves, which would likely result in me filling out a bunch of reports and having to deal with a sobbing, motherless Telly. Hell, if I was going to suffer, I might as well kill a bunch of vampires and go for broke. In for a penny…you know.

“Open the door.” What can I say? I was a nice imp to give the guy one more warning.

He hesitated a second too long. “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” And I did, blowing the door inward. Splintered wood and metal flew everywhere, and the occupants of the nightclub froze in place.

Six vampires. The sign on the door indicated that they should have been open for several hours, but there were no humans or customers in the bar. Just vampires. And a head.

“Private party,” one snarled at me. I recognized him. Julio, or Jose, or something. He was the second in charge behind the Master’s son. I didn’t see that gray-eyed vampire in the room this time. No doubt he had better things to do than hang around a Baltimore bar all night.

“And now it’s
not
a private party.” I stalked over and grabbed Jose by the shirt. “I need to talk to your boss. Now.”

“The Master is in Atlantic City,” he replied, a bit more politely this time. “I can set up an appointment—”

“No. The other dude. The Master’s son. Kyle or something.”

The vampires all exchanged glances. One tried to scoot the head behind the table with his foot.

“Unfortunately the Master’s son is in Europe visiting family and won’t be returning for the next century or so. Is there something I can help you with?”

Century? I wondered what the fuck he’d done to get shipped off to family in Europe for a century. Well, if Kyle wasn’t around, I needed to find out who replaced him.

“Okay. So who holds down the fort here in Baltimore while he’s gone? I doubt the Master pops down from Atlantic City to bother with you all, so who? Who is running the show here?”

“Me. Juan.” The vampire didn’t look so happy at that fact. Once he’d realized I was a demon and not just a stupid human who blew up his front door, he’d become remarkably polite. They were uneasy, not knowing why I was here. And I was pretty sure they weren’t connecting my presence with the head oozing on their floor.

“Good. I need to discuss that.” I pointed at the head.

“It’s an elf head.” Juan’s voice had a note of defiance in it.

“Yes, I know it’s an elf head. It’s my elf head. I mean, that elf belongs to me, and so did his companions.”

A few of the vampires muttered excuses and vanished, leaving me with a somewhat pale Juan and a few curious onlookers. And an elf head.

“I’m sorry Iblis, but this elf did not have your mark on him. We wouldn’t have taken a human or any other being if you’d clearly marked it as yours.”

Reasonable. I couldn’t expect them to psychically know who and what were off limits. Honestly the vampires weren’t to blame in all this. It was the stupid elves’ fault for leaving my field, Gregory’s for not having Elf Island ready fast enough. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I didn’t want to fill out any more reports than I had to. And there was Telly. Yep, that was it. No other reason for me standing here, ready to go nuclear on a group of vampires.

“I didn’t have time to mark them. They’ve just arrived from Hel, and I was at a Ruling Council meeting.” I looked down at the head. Damn. Guess there was no fixing this one.

“There’s some left. We’d be happy to share,” Juan offered.

“I didn’t intend to eat him. I needed him alive. You wouldn’t still have the other one, would you?”

Juan’s eyes darted nervously around the room. “One got away.”

“Yes, I have the one that got away, that’s how I managed to find you. Where’s the other one? There were three.”

“There are a lot more than three,” one of the female vampires added. “According to the dead elf, you’ve got about fifty of them holed up at your house. Now that’s selfish, in my opinion. Demon or not, Iblis or not, you can’t keep fifty elves all to yourself and not share a few.”

“Isobel,” Juan warned.

“No.” She glared at him. “This is
our
territory. We’ve been here longer than this demon. We’ve fought for it, we’ve built businesses and kept out of the public eye. She’s over there in Frederick County screwing things up for us, screwing things up for the Master. And now she’s hoarding elves.”

Hoarding elves? That should totally be a reality television show.

“I won’t be hoarding them for long. The angels are fixing a decent spot for them. I just am putting them up at my house for a few days. And no, I’m not sharing. You should have known by now that demons don’t share. I
especially
don’t share. These elves are mine. You’ve killed two of them. You owe me reparations. And you need to vow to stay away from the others or I’ll be the least of your worries. You know how angels feel about elves.”