Satan's Sword (Imp Book 2) (30 page)

“I can’t get past the tenth level and I’m trying to see if you can. The structure the pigs are in isn’t wood anymore. I use up all my birds hammering at the thing only to have the pigs safe and doing that mocking grunting noise at me. I hate these fucking pigs.”

“You need to tap on the screen when they are close to their target on this one so they break into more birds and get extra oomph. Didn’t you pay attention to the directions? The game showed you that when you reached the level.”

No, I didn’t. I don’t read directions, even in graphic form. I like to just wing it. I watched him carefully as he made it to level eleven and pulled ahead of me in top score. Last round.

I made it to level twelve this time, but couldn’t manage to kill the big fat pig sheltered in pillars of concrete on either side.

“Seven hundred twenty thousand, forty-nine,” I told him. That put me back into the lead. This was his last chance to save his life and his hands shook as he took the phone from me. I could hear his heart pounding, smell the sweat, thick and rancid on his skin.

Twice he failed level twelve, having the same problem with the big fat pig as I had. On his last attempt, his last bird, the thing managed to break through the glass ceiling and squash the pig from above.

He’d already won, but I knew he couldn’t do the math in his head, so I let him continue to play and sweat it out while I leaned over him, blowing in his ear and rubbing myself seductively on his back. If I was going to let him go, I might as well have some fun first.

He finished out at level fifteen and tried, to no avail, to do the math in his head. I made him write it out himself in blood on the floor. He shook like an epileptic the whole time. His bloody numbers were practically undecipherable.

“Eight hundred ninety-six thousand, two hundred eighty,” he told me, his voice catching on a sob. Then he vomited all over the numbers. I stood and watched him, panting on all fours, threads of spit extending from his mouth to the pool of puke.

“It seems you’ve won your freedom. Of course, it would be the ultimate in irony if you were to be hit by a bus on your way home this morning.”

“Mark me so I’m safe,” he panted as he glanced up at me, still not directly meeting my eyes. “I want to get out of here.”

There are lots of ways to mark someone as mine. I could damage him in some fashion. Even though the wound or broken bone would heal, the signature would remain, forever evident to my kind. I could fuck him, although it usually took several times for the energy to hold tight. I thought about the angel tattoos, the little brownish angel wing marks they left on the foreheads of those they killed. Their “forgiveness mark,” showing that the dead had paid their dues and were ready for whatever judgment the afterlife brought. Those marks were small and subtle, hidden along the hairline.

I’d do a tattoo in a more visible spot, I decided. Of course, all the demon symbols that would have terrified the humans a few hundred years ago were cool now. It was common to see even businessmen sporting bloody skulls, winged beasts, or corpses on their bodies. The stuff of nightmares was now stylish. Inspired, I placed a thumb on his cheek and sent my energy into it. He balled up his fists, but withstood the pain. When I finished, I pulled my thumb away to see a fat green pig on his cheek.

“There. Other demons who see you will know you are mine and they should keep their hands off. Of course, if someone’s really pissed and gunning for me, they might decide to torture or kill you to taunt me. That’s unavoidable.”

“How likely is it that you’re going to piss someone off and they’ll take it out on me?” His voice quivered in fear.

“Oh I piss a lot of people off.
That’s
pretty likely. But you’re not one of my household. I have humans around me I care much more about. It’s a pretty slim chance that someone would bother with you when they have so many other beings whose injury or death would cause me pain.”

I looked at the tattoo with a critical eye. I think my perspective was a bit off, but it looked pretty good if I might say so myself.

“The vampires probably won’t mess with you. You may want to avoid angels though. A demon-marked human isn’t going to win any mercy from them. Of course, your current profession probably wouldn’t have won you mercy from them anyway.”

“Vampires?” he asked.

I shooed him away. “The door is welded shut. I really want to finish up here, so if you could just go somewhere and hide, I’ll allow my creative genius reign. I’ll be sure to open the door for you when I leave. Feel free to watch if you want.”

He clearly didn’t want. He took off into the recesses of the warehouse where I’m sure he was hiding behind a box or under a desk in an office. I wondered how he’d feel when he saw his new tattoo. He’d probably be wearing a Band-Aid over his cheek for the rest of his life.

I’d just completed my work of art and un-welded the door when I felt a blast knock me to the ground, burning a hole through my hip.
It couldn’t be Gregory, he would have had much better aim
, I thought as I scrambled on my back to face the angel.

He was slim and androgynous as they all seemed to be. All except mine anyway. I rolled to avoid a second blast and scooted on the floor, dragging a leg slightly from the damage to my hip, narrowly missing a third blast. Didn’t the fucker know I was off limits? Or maybe my special status had been revoked since I’d last seen Gregory. Just in case, I threw a huge wave of energy at him, knocking him through the wooden side of a crate.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I shouted and set the box on fire. It was pretty impressive to see the angel burst from the burning crate, wreathed in fire but undamaged, like a legendary phoenix.

He smiled. “The vampires cannot protect you now. They’ll probably be grateful to have such a troublesome guest exterminated.”

I dodged another blast and launched myself at the angel, knocking him back across the floor with me on top of him. Before he could react, I drove a burst of energy into him and enhanced it with a sonic boom, like the one that had so injured Althean this summer. His eyes grew big.

“Wait, wait. I didn’t realize you were Tsith’s bound demon. Hold off your attack. I’m in his choir, I can’t battle you, it is forbidden. Hold off.”

I stood and let him get up. Tsith? He’d called Gregory
Tsith
? Tsith wasn’t a name, or even a title, it was a term of endearment. A rather embarrassing term of endearment, in my opinion. It was like calling him sweetie pie, or lovey muffin. Ick.

The angel stood and looked me over, then, with a shimmer of light, transformed into a decidedly female form. A very beautiful female form with white hair cascading in a fine sheet to her shoulders, and bright blue eyes framed with long, gold-tipped lashes. Her pale pink lips puckered with consideration as she continued to assess me. I wondered what she was thinking.

“I’m Samantha Martin.” I put out my hand. Might as well introduce myself. I wasn’t sure which of my names Gregory knew, what he called me. Besides cockroach, that was. I felt a fierceness inside me at the thought of this angel calling me cockroach. I’d kill her if she called me that name. Only
my
angel could call me that.

“I’m Eloa.” She refused my outstretched fingers.

Eloa meant pity, mercy. It was an odd choice of angels to be a liaison to the vampires. Although I was sure the angel’s idea of mercy and pity wasn’t the same as everyone else’s. There wasn’t a lot of pity in her eyes as she examined every inch of me. Curiosity, excitement, uneasy wonder, and faint disgust was written clear as could be on her face.

“Um. You don’t think we could possibly keep this thing between you and me, do you?” I asked, gesturing at the stack of body parts. “There’s no need to tell your boss that I’ve been a bad girl. I can make it worth your while.”

She gave me a rather nasty smile, and continued to look me over. Gregory was going to fucking kill me over this weekend’s events.

“I guess that’s a yes? A maybe?”

She examined me further, ignoring my question.

“Why are you staring at me? Do I have bits of human in my teeth or something?” I was feeling like a zoo animal about to be poked, prodded, and catalogued. Plus, I was getting the odd notion that she was assessing me as a rival.

That perfect bow of a mouth turned up in an innocent smile. “You have no idea the uproar you’ve caused among the angelic host. Tsith binding you is pretty notable since he hasn’t bound a demon in thousands of years. He always just kills them.”

She said the last bit with pride, and let her eyes once again wander over me, this time in open scorn. I wished she’d stop calling him that name. It was creeping me out.

“Some theorized that Tsith was planning to infiltrate your realm and use you to destroy the demons once and for all, but when you managed to gate into Aaru and drop a dead bird there, a virtual panic ensued. No demon can get into Aaru, none. Scholars will debate for tens of thousands of years on how you managed that one. Then you sneak in
again,
and leave a pile of smoldering excrement.”

I felt a little guilty at that one. I’d been so furious at Gregory, and a flaming bag of dog poop seemed like the perfect gift.

“No one is sure what Tsith’s intentions are, what he plans to do with you, but a few have dared question his ability to keep you under control.”

She said this as though she personally wanted to do away with these doubters.

“What do you think?” I asked, curious of her reaction as well as her answer. I wasn’t let down.

“It is not my place to wonder about my Tsith’s intentions. He is old, powerful. His knowledge and purity allow him an omnipotence others can only dream of. I live only to serve him.”

Yikes. She was really on a roll here. And now she was referring to him as “my Tsith.” As if he would be remotely interested in a boring sycophant like her. I frowned at the angel, but she was oblivious to my irritation.

“Every time someone mentions ending your existence, Tsith gets furious and commands that no one is allowed to harm or kill you. That only he has that privilege.”

How nice that he was saving me for himself. I wondered how much time I had left. I was hoping that I could somehow manage to kill this nauseating angel before he did me in. I was beginning to hate her.

“And it
is
his privilege.” Clearly the humans weren’t the only ones who worshiped my angel. “You are bound to him, you are his property, and no one should presume to touch what he claims.”

Fuck her. I might be bound, but it wasn’t as if I were an inanimate possession, a rug or a chair. I realized she’d be happy if I were a trophy on his wall though. Gritting my teeth, I pushed down my detest for her, with her floaty white hair and pouty little mouth. I needed information, and she was hardly going to give it to me if she thought I was a threat, or if she thought I was a rival for her
Tsith’s
affections. Blech.

“Don’t get your halo in a knot or anything,” I reassured her. “I think whatever usefulness I pose is coming to an end, and it’s clear, based on our last encounter, that he won’t hesitate to kill me when he’s ready.”

She looked at me, no doubt trying to decide if I was the equivalent of a chair or not.

“Seriously,” I insisted. “I’m nothing but an annoyance to him.”

I saw her relax slightly.

“Let’s go get a drink, or maybe some nachos, and chat,” I suggested casually. Then I sealed the deal.

“He talks about you all the time, you know,” I said with a tinge of sad regret, as if I longed for him to speak that way about me. “It’s always Eloa this, Eloa that. The only one he can trust to really get the job done, his right hand.”

I saw her glow and nod in agreement.

Chapter 24

T
he bar was a bit of an issue. It seems humans don’t want to serve drinks to someone covered in blood and gore with bullet holes riddling their clothing. Eloa had to wave her delicate little hands around and pout a bit to get them to ignore my existence. Of course, that now meant she had to order the drinks.

“Get me a vodka,” I ordered. “Tell them I want it cold. And not the cheap shit, either.”

I was beginning to wish she’d go back to her androgynous male form. The Marilyn Monroe thing was grating on me big-time.

Eloa ordered two vodkas, and with a little smirk pulled something out of her pocket. I couldn’t believe it. A joint. The angel seriously had a joint of marijuana on her. Completely ignoring human, and probably angelic, laws, she lit it up and offered it to me after taking a puff. I didn’t hesitate. After all, I am a demon.

“Hot damn, this is nice,” I said passing the joint back to her. Maybe Marilyn Monroe wasn’t so bad after all.

“Yes, it’s one of the more palatable things of this world.” She took a puff, her pink lips framing the joint in languid seduction.

“Try the vodka. That stuff rocks, too. It’s so much better than that crappy wine the elves are always foisting on us.”

She threw down the shot and held up the empty glass, raising an eyebrow in speculation. “It goes well with this burning weed wrapped in paper.”

Okay, this angel was growing on me. I’ll admit I liked the gate guardian with her snarky humor and her gluttonous cravings for sweet and sour sauce, but an angel that liked pot and vodka was like a kindred spirit. Why couldn’t Gregory be more like this? We’d have a total blast together if I could get him to enjoy alcohol and drugs.

“You seem pretty cool, the gate guardian seems pretty cool. Why does your Tsith have such a massive stick up his ass?”

The word stuck a bit in my mouth. I can’t believe I actually called Gregory “Tsith.” Eloa stiffened, no doubt offended that I’d think an angel had a stick up his ass. Still, I was curious why he wasn’t like the other angels I’d met to date.

“You can’t really expect him to be friendly and loving after what went down during the war.”

They’d all been through the war. They were all really stinking old. That couldn’t be the reason, unless there was something specific that happened during the war that I was unaware of. I expected that they’d all be less than friendly and loving after the war, not hanging out with me in a bar drinking vodka and getting high.