| |
“What after all, is a halo? It’s only one more thing to keep clean.”
—Christopher Fry
I WASN’T SURPRISED that Bub wasn’t home when I returned from my visit with Tasha. When the Prince of Demons threatened a kerfuffle, he meant it. And Una would not be an easy audience to sway, no matter how thick my demon laid on the charm or intimidation.
Still, it made for a restless night of tossing and turning, even with two freshly groomed hellhounds warming my feet. They’d forgiven me for the backyard quarantine, but I received an ankle nip or two for my fidgety bed etiquette. The few hours of sleep I managed—in the wee hours of the morning—got ruined by a nightmare where I was trapped in a lion enclosure at a zoo after hours.
I woke up with a scream in my throat but swallowed it when I noticed Bub lying beside me. His black dress shirt and slacks were in a pile on the floor as if he’d barely had the energy to strip out of them before falling into bed. I’d save my questions for tonight when I would, hopefully, have good news to share.
The hunt was bound to go better today. After providing us with a list of eighteen useless souls, the Fates’ reputation was at stake. They were a proud trio, and they had more to lose than most if Eternity fell apart. They would try harder when curating the list for today.
Of course, better soul candidates meant a better chance of encountering hellcats—lion-faced or otherwise—and whoever was possibly summoning them if Hades’ theory was correct. Which meant I was in need of a demon expert.
I dressed in a hurry and rushed through my morning, feeding the hounds and sucking down a cup of piping-hot coffee between apologizing to Rupert for raiding his snack stash. He insisted that he didn’t mind, but I suspected the coffee was extra strong because of the longer day he would now have running errands in the city.
I left before Bub woke, coining off to the harbor, where I repeated the donuts and docket review with Kevin and Eliza. Luckily, they were fully clothed when I arrived this time.
“These are all low-risk souls, and they’re in Posy lots,” Kevin said, scanning the list I’d transferred from my docket to his. I hated to be the one to break the news, but my apprentices deserved to hear it from me rather than the Daily Reaper Report, or worse, Limbo’s Laundry.
“Arden needs extra help right now,” I said. “Molly Driver and her apprentice were killed in the line of duty yesterday.”
Eliza sucked in a sharp breath. “Hellcats?”
“Maybe. They’re not entirely sure,” I confessed. “When Special Ops is officially reinstated, we’ll likely be working alongside the Posies again to help with their recent surplus of souls. If they want me to keep searching for original believers, that would be the most logical move.”
Kevin waved his docket at me. “We could push these a day without any repercussions.”
“I’m okay with playing catchup tomorrow,” Eliza added.
“I know, I know.” I opened the donut box, literally sugarcoating my apology. “I wish it were up to me, but it’s not,” I said as Kevin grabbed another chocolate Danish. I’d splurged on the deluxe assortment, anticipating this conversation. “Besides, there’s a chance you’ll receive an extra soul or two this afternoon once Regina divvies up the rest of Molly’s list.”
“We should be with you.” Eliza’s voice hitched with concern. “The souls you’re after are the worst of the worst. I bet they reek of the underworld. The demons loose on the mortal side will be attracted to them.”
“For real,” Kevin agreed around a mouthful of pastry. “I know you have Gabriel, but do you really trust Hecate to have your back? As well as we would?”
“I’d love to have you with me on this assignment—both of you—but like I keep saying, it’s not up to me.” I shrugged and set the donut box on the hatch platform before backing toward the ramp. Saul and Coreen trotted alongside me, tongues lolling and tails wagging. “I’ll ask Jenni again, but with as shorthanded as she is, I won’t force the issue.”
Kevin and Eliza scowled, their displeasure with the situation on full display. I didn’t like it either, though I was glad that I didn’t have to worry about getting them killed on the job. Low-risk Posy harvests were boring, but at least they’d be safe.
I took the ramp down to the dock pier and coined off to knock out a handful of harvests. I wasn’t jerk enough to leave my apprentices with the entire workload, but my list was shorter today. I had two extra stops to make before meeting with Jenni again.
I’d chosen several medium-risk hell-bounds for myself. Not an ideal lot, but I wouldn’t have sent Kevin and Eliza out to collect them on their own, even if the mortal side hadn’t been infested with hellcats. My senses remained on high alert all morning, searching every shadow for movement. The hounds took notice and remained vigilant, as well. They widened our working perimeter, ears perked and noses in the air, sniffing for hints of brimstone.
After we shuffled the last of my catches back to the harbor and secured them in the hold, I ordered the hounds to keep watch until I returned to collect them for the soul hunt. Then I ditched my robe and headed into the city.
Limbo was peaceful mid-morning, the reapers, nephilim, and factory souls all hard at work. Only a handful of lesser celestials and infernals wandered the streets, window-shopping or jogging. Tent signs littered the sidewalk, advertising brunch specials and holiday sales. A light breeze spread the warm, sugar-cinnamon fragrance of chestnuts from a vendor cart. I shot it a longing glance as I hurried by and silently promised myself a treat if the search was successful today. Of course, half of that depended on the Fates’ archives and how reliable they were. The other half of my concern was the reason I’d made time to visit the Reaper Academy.
When Cindy Morningstar had ordered Beelzebub to go undercover with the rebels, she’d also ordered him not to reveal the ruse to anyone—not the Afterlife Council, not me, and not even his most faithful servant: Jackson Bifrons Leonard Melchom.
Jack had been so much more than a butler. He did everything for the Lord of the Flies, and so intuitively that it was a wonder he hadn’t guessed the truth of the situation before it was too late. Once the news had broken that Beelzebub was a traitor working for Seth, they’d frozen his assets, and the manor was ransacked and burned to the ground.
Maalik and I had arrived in time to rescue Jack from the worst of it, but only after he’d suffered a serious crack in one of his horns. We’d taken him to Meng’s to be treated, and it was at her temple in the woods along the southern coast of Limbo City where Jack began to build a new life for himself—one with romance and public prestige.
He’d helped Meng build the infirmary alongside her temple, tending the sickbeds while warming hers. He also worked part-time at the academy, teaching courses on demon defense and infernal history. His butler days were over. There was no time for planning demonic soirees or washing the Prince of Demons’ undies.
On Fridays, Jack graded papers in his office at the academy—or napped, as I caught him doing today. I supposed he didn’t get much rest around the temple or the infirmary. As hard as he’d worked for Bub, there had been more leisure time between his duties at the manor, and none of his tasks had been as demanding as tending to nephilim with broken wings or reapers with hellcat bites.
The old demon’s horns were tilted up at the ceiling. His head rested on the back of his chair, and thunder rattled from his nostrils, though the hand on his desk gripped a red ink pen. I gently rapped my knuckles against the doorframe.
“What? Who?” Jack stammered, coming to with a startled grunt before catching sight of me. “Oh, Lana! I didn’t see you there.”
“I don’t see much with my eyes closed either,” I said, grinning as his face flushed.
“I was just resting my eyes for a moment.” He shuffled a stack of papers on his desk and pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose. “All this grading is a strain on them, you know.”
“Naturally.”
“How’s Rupert working out?” Jack asked, steering the conversation away from his embarrassment. “Is he a better fit than my last referral?”
“He’s great—well, he’s not you, obviously. It’s the one thing Bub can’t seem to forgive them for.”
“Don’t tell me the old boy is still on about all that.” Jack gave me a knowing grin, but he changed the subject before I could divulge just how on about all that Bub really was. “I suppose Jenni has informed you that I’ll be delivering the regression tea in Meng’s stead.” At my surprise, he added, “It’s far too dangerous, and I’m better versed in the hell regions where the service is required.”
“Right, of course,” I said. “Actually, I’m here about something else.”
“Do tell.”
“I’m having trouble identifying a creature.”
“Did you get a good look at it?” Jack asked.
“I haven’t witnessed it personally, but there have been several accounts of hellcats, or rather beasts similar to hellcats that look more like lions.”
“Do they bear any marks or sigils? Claws or talons? Anything special about their tails?”
“Uh...” I chewed my bottom lip. “Sorry, the lion faces are all I’ve got. Any ideas?”
Jack frowned, but he stood and went to a bookshelf in the corner of his office. “Hard to say for certain with so little to go on, but taking the potential apocalypse into consideration, there are several possibilities.” His fingers skimmed the titles of the old volumes until he found the one he was looking for and plucked the crusty tome from the shelf. The leather spine was so brittle that bits of it crumbled and fell off as Jack laid the book on his desk and opened the front cover. My Latin was rusty, but I stumbled through it at the demon’s prodding.
“Finis Omnis Vitae et Mortis. The End of All Life and Death?”
“Yes, very dark reading, as you can imagine.” Jack turned the page delicately and squinted at the book’s table of contents before skipping ahead. “There are so many various eschatological theories, second comings and final judgments, but I think I can at least give you a few things to look for if you encounter one of these beasts personally.”
“If I survive long enough to take field notes on the thing,” I said under my breath. The idea of coming face-to-face with whatever had taken out thirty of Ross’s guards and Molly Driver, a reaper four hundred years my senior, was not part of the plan. But it was best to be prepared.
“Let’s see...” Jack thumbed ahead to an illustrated page of average-looking lions, none of which I thought anyone would ever mistake for a hellcat. “There’s the Christian Armageddon that details four living creatures, the first having the face of a lion. But then there’s also the winged Lion of Saint Mark, and the Lion of Judah—which sometimes appears as a lamb.”
“But aren’t those divine beings?” I asked. “Why would they attack the Nephilim Guard?”
Jack eyed me over the rim of his glasses. A gently patronizing smile curled the corners of his mouth. “You forget that the offspring of the fallen have not always enjoyed such freedom or respect in Eternity. As soulless beings with an outcast lineage, they are still susceptible to the wrath of Heaven if left at its mercy.”
Eternity’s history was just as riddled with embarrassing follies as the mortal side. It was easy to forget sometimes, but the gods had been made in humanity’s image, and as such, they reflected their biases and cruelty, their elitism and greed.
“But as far as demons go”—Jack turned to another page, revealing a lion-faced creature with a scorpion stinger for a tail—“we have Abaddon’s locusts from the abyss”—he turned the page again, this time to a full spread of an even larger beast with a bushy mane and a snapping snake head in place of its tail—“and about two hundred million of these pretties said to be summoned by the four angels bound at the banks of the Euphrates.”
“Two hundred million, you say?” My tongue was suddenly dry, and I could feel my pulse vibrating in my eye sockets. “Gabriel said something about a falling star and a key...”
“Yes, well, a fallen star is a whimsical euphemism for so many things. Regardless, the abyss was quite secure, last I checked,” Jack said. “The Euphrates, too.”
I swallowed the lump building in the back of my throat. “The Euphrates? Is that the river drying up over in Syria and Iraq?”
“A-plus in geography, young reaper.” Jack flipped a few pages ahead in the book. “That’s not even your territory. I’m impressed, but you did score well on your L&L.”
My gaze shot up from the book of doomsday creatures. “You looked at my transcript?”
“I was curious.” He paused to give me another paternal smile. “I wanted to see if you’d always been a difficult pupil or if demon defense just wasn’t your forte.”
“Hey, I was a good student. It was Latin that wasn’t my forte.”
“True,” Jack agreed, turning his attention back to the book. “Regarding the Euphrates River, a handful of deities from Ancient Mesopotamia have lion steeds, though many of them have not been seen since before the First War when they were defeated, and their territories dissolved. Some were killed and had no followers to resurrect them, but a few opted to join the mortal coil—at least, for a time. I believe you met one several winters back.”
“Odin,” I grumbled, recalling my freezing walk through the snow with Gabriel after getting shafted by a Santa imposter.
“Oh!” Jack stabbed a finger at the next page. “Sekhmet, the lioness-headed Egyptian warrior goddess. The Lady of Slaughter, also known as She Who Mauls. If we’re dealing with a singular creature—in addition to the hellcats, of course—then my coin is on her. She comes with an easy solution, as well. It’s said that Ra fed her red-dyed beer to sate her bloodlust.”
“Beer makes everything better,” I said, wondering if Jenni would go for such a plan. She’d probably want to confirm that Sekhmet had gone AWOL first and that I wasn’t just trying to be sneaky about drinking on the job.
“I’ll keep digging,” Jack offered. “But knowing more about this beast would certainly help. Please, do share any new details you discover.”
“Thanks, Jack.” I tilted my head to one side, laying it on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around my back and gave me a squeeze. “I appreciate you doing this.”
“Just don’t tell Master Beelzebub,” he whispered as if a tiny, winged spy might be eavesdropping. I grinned at his use of master. Bub hadn’t been his master for some time now, but old habits die hard—especially habits that were hundreds of years old.
“I better take off,” I said, easing toward the exit as Jack fetched another volume from his shelf.
“Happy hunting,” he called after me. “Fates willing, I’ll be there to celebrate your victory upon your return.”
“Fates willing,” I echoed, ignoring the coil of dread squeezing my insides.