The Demon Beside Me (38 page)

“Ten seconds.”

“Take it now,” I snapped. “You have seconds left before the next round.”

Bartholomew stood up. “I assume the authority as the Seraphim are unable to do so. The Angelic Choir accedes to your demands, demon.” He drew his sword from the air and flipped it around, extending it to me hilt-first. “The victory is yours.”

I grabbed the sword from his hands. “I accept! Death, no more!”

The Horseman appeared next to me. “Is this to your satisfaction, Gatekeeper?”

“It is.”

“I trust that you recall our bargain?”

“I do. As soon as everything has settled down here, we will open the Gates of Ascension. It may take a couple of days. Is that acceptable?”

The Horseman shrugged. “We have been waiting for hundreds of years. A few more days is nothing.”

Bartholomew watched this exchange with narrowed eyes. “A dark bargain to save your people.”

“It’s less dark than you’d think,” I said. “Besides, you’re not exactly going to be popular, either.”

“There is a certain level of pragmatism among our people,” he said. “While I may have overstepped my bounds, there is a vacuum where those bounds once were.”

I reversed his sword and handed it back to him. His eyebrows rose. “Yes, you and your people are paroled,” I said. “We don’t want to rule you. We don’t want anything to do with you, to be honest. If you would just leave us alone, things would be fine. That’s all we want.”

“So you’re trying to tell us to give peace a chance?”

“In effect, yes.”

Bartholomew’s eyes slid toward Caleb. “That is what he believes, isn’t it?”

“You could do worse than believing in him,” I said.

In the next few minutes, archons distributed new orders to every surviving Choir unit. For once, their monolithic command structure worked in our favor. Not one of their units refused the order to disengage. I walked across the room to sit next to Tink. She leaned against me, both of us exhausted, and we watched as higher ranked angels passed orders back and forth while the lower ranks carried bodies out and cleaned up the shards of steel that littered the floor.

Soon enough, the only body left was Victor’s. No one seemed to want to touch it. Caleb still knelt near it, his gaze focused on the ground. I stood up, offering a hand to Tink to help her up. We walked to our friend. He looked up as we stood over him. Tears tracked his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“So am I,” he said.

“The demon did what he needed to do,” Tink said.

“I wish that he didn’t need to do it.”

“We’re going to leave,” I said. “You want to get out of here?”

He shook his head and slowly got to his feet. “I can’t. Not right now. I need to be alone for a while.”

“And then?”

“And then my people need me.”

I wanted to offer him my hand. I wanted to show that we were still friends, or at least, that I was still his friend. When I saw his eyes, I hesitated, then nodded. “You know where to find me.”

He almost smiled. “Looking for a new apartment?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Once things are taken care of here, we’ll need to talk,” he said.

“You got it.”

He nodded, hesitated, then walked away. I led Tink in the other direction, out from that chamber, toward the exit signs that lit the halls. “Do you have any idea where we are?” she asked.

“Not a clue. I was unconscious when they brought us here, remember?”

“So you have no idea how to get home from here?”

“Nope.”

“You have any money to call a cab?”

“You’re the rich bitch, you know.”

“What good are you then, demon?”

I glared at her, then realized she was grinning. “You tell me.”

“Let’s go home, demon.”

“I don’t have a home to return to,” I reminded her.

She sighed. “Well, I guess under the circumstances, you can crash on my couch.”

“Are you serious?”

Her scowl came out in full force. “But if I catch you doing anything with my little sister, if you touch her, if you even think about touching her, I will fucking kill you, demon. You got me?”

I held up a hand and dragged her to a halt. “Wait a minute. Wait just a damned minute here, Tink. You’ve got a little sister?”

“Yes, I do.”

“A
little
sister?”

She punched me.

It took the better part of a week before I was able to discharge my debt to the Horsemen. Opheran himself had arrived on scene to get us away before the Choir could change their minds. Luckily, the House troops that arrived with him kept from antagonizing the Choir, and we left without further incident.

Instead of letting me crash on Tink’s couch like I so richly deserved, Opheran pushed me around for the next four days, trying to put together an accurate picture of what our House had lost in the war. The first and foremost loss was our High Prince. The day after Tink and I had been taken, Harax had ordered a full-scale search. He took part personally, taking along a group of his handpicked elite guards. Only one of them had returned.

Opheran had taken command of the House in the interim and ordered our people to go to ground. Our cell system had broken down under pressure and hundreds of demons dropped out of contact. It took me three days simply to compile a list of those who had survived, which let us concentrate on determining who was dead and who was simply missing.

Our House was lucky. House Lucifer was effectively destroyed with fewer than three hundred adults surviving the war. Mammon and Beelzebub had lost the majority of their fighting forces. Belphagor refused to reveal the extent of their losses. On the brighter side, Amon and Leviathan were relatively intact, and neither of them trusted the other. If they had united, they would have dominated the Host. It would take years for the full ramifications to shake out.

Once I had completed Opheran’s task to his satisfaction, we had a long chat. While he was still angry at how I had disobeyed orders, and even angrier about how our High Prince had fallen in battle as a result, in the end my audacity had resulted in the end of the war. “I can’t damn well punish you for that,” he said, drumming his claws on his desk. “But, I can give you a reward you don’t damn well want, Baron.”

“Baron?”

“You’re now a Baron, and a member of the House Council, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails,” he said, placing a rather large amount of emphasis on the word “responsibilities”. I cringed. “I believe your holdings will be local. I also plan on further duties for you, Baron, since leaving you to your own devices seems to cause disaster after disaster.”

“But I’m a halfblood,” I pointed out. “I can’t exactly hold a noble rank without challenge, and it’s not like I can fight off a challenge. All I need to do is yield.”

Opheran simply grinned. “All I need to do is mention what duties they will inherit if they are victorious. You won’t be challenged.”

“Shit.”

I gave Tink a call once Opheran had dismissed me. She glared at me once I got in the car. I glared back. “What?”

“What the hell have you been doing for the last five days?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Opheran gave me a bunch of shit to do. Plus he made me a Baron to keep me out of trouble.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” She put the car in gear and we pulled away. I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be driving with one arm in a sling, but it couldn’t be any worse than usual.

“No, it’s supposed to horrify you,” I said. “It certainly horrifies me.”

She snorted. “You’re such a typical man.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re terrified of commitment and responsibility.”

“Bullshit. I committed well enough to Hikari.” Her name left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Tink started to say something, but instead, gave me a sidelong glance. “I can’t very well tell you off for all that, can I? I was encouraging you to dump that bitch for months.”

“What bothers me is that she was nowhere to be found when Victor was fighting. Did she abandon him? Where is she?”

“I can ask at the next conclave meeting, but I don’t think she’ll be coming back,” Tink said. “If she does, I’ll probably kill her on sight.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.”

“Where are we going?” I asked. “I probably should have asked that first, right?”

“Caleb’s,” she said.

“Why Caleb’s?”

“We still have something to do, don’t we?”

I knocked on Caleb’s door. It took a long moment, but he pulled the door open and stared at us. He was unshaven and his eyes were red and slightly sunken. The reek of alcohol wafted from somewhere in his apartment. “Are you hung over?” I asked him.

“I was,” he said. “Then I drank more.”

Tink jabbed me in the side. I jumped sideways and she pushed forward, Caleb automatically giving way. “What the hell have you been doing?” she asked. “This place is a mess and so are you.”

I looked at Caleb and he looked back. For a moment, I thought he was going to smile, but he looked away and stepped back. “I’ve been busy,” he said.

“Doing what?” Tink asked. I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “Looks like you’re been busy drinking every bottle in your apartment.”

“Like I said, busy,” he said, collapsing onto his couch. “What do you want?”

“We still have one part of our Gatekeeper contract left,” Tink said, walking out of the kitchen with a pair of glasses in her hands. She walked to the couch, handing a glass to Caleb, then sat down on the other end and sipped from the other. I made a face at her, receiving a smirk in return. “We still need to open the Gates of Ascension.”

“How?”

“Hell if I know. Demon, this is your game.”

I shrugged and leaned against the wall. “I have no idea where those Gates are.”

“Can’t you just call upon the Horsemen?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t have to.” There had been three of us in Caleb’s apartment a moment ago, and now there were seven. Conquest sat in a chair that hadn’t existed before he spoke, a martini glass in his hand. War’s wheelchair was pulled up next to the couch. Famine sat between Tink and Caleb, kicking her heels against the couch. Death leaned against the wall next to me. Conquest continued as Caleb sat bolt upright. “All that was required was for the surviving Gatekeepers to meet again. Forgive me. I did not think that all three of you would survive to the end of the contract.”

“All three of us are rather experienced at surviving,” I said. “So, who won the bet?”

Death chuckled quietly. “I did.”

Caleb’s glance flicked over to Death, then to me, then away. “Let’s get this over with, then,” he said. “How do we go about opening the Gates of Ascension?”

Conquest lifted his glass in my direction. “He holds a key still, doesn’t he?”

I pulled on the chain that lay around my neck, the key to Heaven shimmering into existence. I held it up for a moment, then lifted the chain over my head and flung it toward Caleb, who grabbed it out of the air. “I assume that you’ll get it to whoever needs it,” I said.

“No real need,” he said. “The Seraphic Council appointed me to get it back and take ownership of Heaven on behalf of the Choir. Thanks, Zay. You just got me a promotion.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” he said. “Now I’ll be a Dominion. I really don’t know if I should thank you after all. They’re going to stick me with all sorts of work.”

“What the fuck is the Seraphic Council?” Tink asked. “I thought the Seraphim and Cherubim simply ran the show?”

Caleb took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. “We are under martial law,” he said. “Bartholomew consolidated a group of the survivors and forced the issue. We’re in a state of emergency. That’s why I’ve suddenly been jumped two ranks and given command of a new office.”

“A new office?”

“I’ve been assigned to create a diplomatic office to ensure that there’s never a third Celestial War,” he said, lifting his gaze and staring at me. “Recent events have resulted in a drastic emergency within the Choir. Didn’t either you ever notice?”

“Stop being coy,” Tink snapped.

“How many women have you seen within our ranks?”

I blinked. “None?”

“None,” he said. “Why do you think that is?”

“Because there weren’t enough women to risk in combat roles,” Death said quietly. “The Choir has been breeding itself out of existence.”

My hands clenched into fists and I almost stopped breathing. Death had told me not to show mercy. I had followed that advice and now I was the cause of the slow death of their race? “That’s why they pushed so hard for a fight now, wasn’t it?” I forced myself to ask. “Because the Choir’s hitting their final crest?”

“Final? Hardly,” Caleb said. “I have been made privy to the numbers, though. Right now and for the next couple of years, it would have been the largest disparity in military force between the Choir and Host in history. However, after that point, due to our horribly low growth rate, the Host would begin to close the gap. If you had become more militaristic, you would close the gap astoundingly rapidly. The Seraphim and Cherubim decided that we had to force the issue while we had the chance.”

“So they used Victor as their cat’s paw?” I asked.

“Yes and no. They had their own plans, but when you claimed Heaven and Victor took that opportunity to press his vendetta against me, they saw their opportunity and gave him the support he needed.”

I slid down the wall to crouch on the ground. “So regardless of what I did, we would have had a war?”

“Pretty much.”

“And now?”

“Now the Choir wants to avoid further military action at all cost. Honestly, we were ready to absorb heavy losses. But we weren’t ready for what actually happened.”

“I had no idea,” I said. “Shit, Caleb.”

“Who was going to tell you?” He snorted. “Do you really think anyone blames you for it?”

“Yes,” I said.

There was a long moment of silence, which Tink broke before either of us could. “What’s going to happen to your race, Caleb? What are you going to do to your women?”