Lilith, Baroness of the Seventh Circle of Hell, strode back into the living room and grabbed Hobal by its throat, lifting the demon off the ground like it was wearing a cardboard shell rather than the meat and bone suit of human flesh.
“That one is of prime importance to my—to our mission. You do not go near him, speak to him, or even look in his direction. I have focused too much effort on flensing away his defenses and binding him to my will to have you look at him as a snack. You were sent to aid me. If you cannot do so, I will end you myself and send you back to the pit. And then my lord will view you as a snack.”
She shook the lesser creature like a doll, not so much to hurt it, as its flesh shell didn’t feel pain from purely physical damage, but instead to make her point.
Then she threw it across the room and into the kitchen, where it skidded across the yellowed linoleum floor and slammed into the cheap kitchen cabinets. It lay there, unharmed, but wisely keeping still.
“But you took enjoyment from that monkey. Why can’t we?” Obiax whined. It was wearing the female shell, but it was in no way feminine.
In a flicker of movement, Lilith stood before it, her head tilted to one side, studying the lower demon. Obiax cringed back submissively.
“So you place yourselves on my level?” Lilith asked, voice mild.
The demon wearing human skin froze in place. The first glimmer of realization was just forming in its red eyes when Lilith’s right hand plunged into its chest. She held its gaze for a moment then withdrew her hand, holding a squirming, putrescent glob of black slime.
The body collapsed like a puppet shorn of its strings while Lilith turned and held out a hand to the remaining demon. Instantly, that one pushed an empty glass pickle jar into her waiting hand.
She slowly held her hand over the jar and waited. After a second, the squirming lump sagged, almost in surrender, and then oozed down into the empty container. Lilith held out her now empty but black-crud-encrusted right hand and the lid was carefully placed on it. She casually screwed the lid down and then held up the closed container.
“You will stay in this vessel, Obiax, until, and if, I choose a new shell for you. You will do nothing but contemplate the vastness of the gulf that separates you from me,” the Hell Baroness said.
She swept a spot clear on the littered coffee table with one arm and then set the jar down. Her gaze pinned each of the other demons until they wisely dropped their eyes.
“As a rule, I don’t explain myself to lower demons. But I will tell you all this—just so none of you ruin this with your stupidity. That monkey is best friends”—she stopped and took in the blank looks of the two still wearing human faces—“he has access to the target and is important to the target and he has no protections, at least not anymore, from our kind. The target, however, could reduce any or all of you to ash with a wave of his hand. He might even give me trouble. So… I approach him from several directions at once, each contact chipping away at his personal protections, each time layering my own personal magic over him.”
“Why not grab the monkey and hold him hostage?” Nicor, the only demon still standing, asked.
“And invite the Hammer of God to rescue him? Or did you forget that an Angel of the Host is here… just a short distance away?”
Nicor pulled back, shaking its head. Hobal pushed upright against the cabinet and shook its head also.
“Then leave the planning to me and one of you haul this meat to the basement with the others. And light more incense,” she said, before heading back into the room she had claimed for her own.
There she moved to the beat-up dresser and opened the top drawer. Inside, lying on a pair of white silk panties, was a pair of necklaces, one formed of Rowan wood, the other a Native American fetish of carved soapstone in the form of a wolf, each artifact strung on a broken cord. The wooden one twisted her vision but the stone wolf made her body want to vomit.
Carefully she folded the white silk over, covering both pieces of jewelry with the insulating cloth. Closing the drawer, she first sat down, then lay back on the bed and contemplated her next move. Her lover’s scent was on the pillow and she breathed deeply of it and smiled to herself.