It had been a while since I’d been to LA. Back when I’d first started this crazy extended vacation away from Hel, I’d begun in Vegas, then had to leave due to some unfortunate trouble with Dar and his side business involving stolen Betamax VCRs. Strange that LA and strong-arming drug dealers had been less dangerous than hijacking trucks of electronics. LA was where I’d discovered a love of cocaine and high-priced hookers. It’s where I’d become one of the most feared beings in the barrio.

It’s where I’d Owned the soul of Samantha Martin. I’d found her at the home of a dickhead drug dealer who owed me money and product. He and his cronies were out, but sprawled across the floor, bleeding and dying I’d seen a girl of no more than eighteen. She’d been repeatedly raped, and injected with something far from pure. It was clear that dickhead and his buddies expected her to be dead when they returned, and if she wasn’t dead they’d probably take another go with her and continue on until she breathed her last.

She’d looked up at me, her face bruised and battered, the pupils of her eyes blown out with the drugs. “Take me,” she’d said. And I’d known exactly what she’d meant.

“What do you want in return?” I didn’t have to offer a deal. I could take any offered soul without even a thank-you. I could take even a non-offered soul, although those were sometimes troublesome to Own. But this woman…I felt like I was on the edge of something momentous, something life-changing.

“Revenge,” she whispered, but I knew she wanted far more than that.

“What do you want?” I pressed again, having to know the answer.

“I want the life I should have had,” she told me.

I took her. And when dickhead and his cronies had returned, I’d killed every last one of them. Then I went and killed the boyfriend who’d traded her to his dealer to pay off his debt. Then I went on to live a life as a human with her right beside me all the way. Say what you will, but it changes a demon to walk side-by-side with a human soul for nearly four decades. I’d released her soul along with the others when I thought I was going to die in Ahriman’s dungeon, but in a way, Samantha Martin still walked with me. I continued to bear her name here among the humans, and I still used her appearance as my primary form both in and out of Hel.

I hoped I’d given her the life she’d wanted—the kickass, empowered life she’d been cheated of.

The television footage had been from central LA, so I’d teleported and walked in along I-10. The highway was empty aside from some abandoned cars along the shoulder, and a handful fleeing outbound as fast as they could. Seems everyone had decided to hunker down and ride it out, praying the angels would come to their rescue.

Smoke spiraled up Chinatown, or possibly Dodger Stadium. I hopped off the highway near City Hall and prowled around the streets of downtown, eyeing smashed buildings and upside-down cars. LA was a huge city. To cause this kind of widespread damage, Samael had to have brought thousands of demons. Possibly more.

A few figures darted among the alleyways and pre-dawn shadows, scurrying over walls and into doorways.

“Hey,” I shouted, knowing a hoard of Low demons when I saw them. Lows. I doubted Samael would have bothered with them in his illustrious army, so these were probably the tagalongs that followed any group of demons, trying to stay out of the way and grab a few interesting items in the leavings of the higher-level demons.

Normally I’d identify myself as the Iblis, because no matter if a Low was in my household or not, they tended to flock to me as their leader, but I didn’t want to announce my presence quite yet—not until I’d gotten in to see Samael. But as a human, I’d only be a target, and anyone who really tried would catch a hint of my spirit-self. It was harder to completely lock my energy down ever since I’d acquired the wings and become an Angel of Chaos.

So instead I tried to appear a low-level imp, the sort who might have reluctantly been included in an army of invaders but just as easily left behind once the action got going.

“Hey, where’s the party? I got stuck in an elevator and everyone was gone by the time I got out. Hellooooo?”

A few shadows moved in an alleyway, and I suddenly saw a pair of heads with huge pointed leathery ears and whiskery noses. Scaled and clawed hands clacked along the corner of the building, a furry tail with spiked end flicked into view.

“Do you have a weapon?”

Only the sword, and I wasn’t about to summon it and give myself away. “I’m a demon. Why would I be carrying a weapon?”

The Low’s nose twitched. “Show me your demon form.”

Crap. I’d been so used to walking around in a human form, that I’d forgotten how unusual that was among demons—especially demons attacking a human city and wanting to intimidate the locals with their strange appearance. But my primary form was just as distinctive, and quite possibly recognizable. Instead I grew a set of horns from my head and a long forked tail from my ass, turning my lower half furry and brown with cloven hooves for feet and an upper half with red scales. My eyes glowed gold with reptilian pupils, and I shot a long barbed tongue out of my mouth to taste the air.

“Better?”

The Low eased his way out of the alley, his long body twice the size it should have been given his two tiny heads. He took a tentative step toward me then froze, his noses quivering. Faster than I could blink he was back into the alleyway and out of sight.

“Halt. Put your…paws in the air and turn slowly around.”

I put my “paws” above my head and turned to see a line of guys armed in SWAT apparel behind me, all six of them pointing some rather serious-looking weaponry at my body. Damn. I eyed the alley, stretching my awareness as far as it would go to try to sense any hint of demon energy. Gone. Unless they were better than me at hiding their spirit-selves, the Lows had fled far away. It was just me and these humans with their fingers on the triggers.

“I’m one of the good guys.” I never in my life thought I’d be saying that, but compared to everyone else in this town, I was relatively good.

“On your knees,” one of them commanded. It was hard to know which one since they all had on helmets and were speaking with some sort of amplification system.

“Seriously. Watch.” I transformed back into my human form, naked of course. They shot me. I shouldn’t have been surprised given how twitchy these guys probably were.

Getting shot by six guys with automatic weapons thankfully wouldn’t kill me, but it was enough to knock me down and fill me with enough bloody holes that I was pretty sure every organ in my body had been perforated. I waited until they were done, waited until I heard some panicked discussion about whether I was dead or not, then I simultaneously got up, repaired my physical form, and revealed my wings.

They shot me again. And the wings that I’d thought would clue them in that I was on the good-guy side of things did nothing but cause me excruciating pain as bullets slammed into them. I screamed and everything slowed. The Iblis sword appeared in my hand, sucking bullets into itself like a pointy metal vacuum. My wings extended with a snap, and suddenly the sound of gunfire ceased to be replaced by human screams.

The humans threw red-hot guns to the ground, peeling off helmets and riot gear as quickly as they could, kicking them aside. Swarms of insects rose from the vests and helmets. Within seconds I was facing six half-naked men, shouting and cursing as they swatted at themselves.

“Stop fucking shooting me,” I snapped before dismissing the insects I’d somehow summoned or created without conscious thought. “Next time you shoot my wings, it’s gonna be scorpions and snakes. Got it?”

The men faced me, red welts and bite marks forming on their skin. Eyes widened as they took in the wings they’d somehow not noticed when they were spraying bullets at me. It’s a sad commentary on the state of human law enforcement training when they don’t notice that someone has a sixty-foot wingspan before they open fire.

“Thank God you’re here,” one stuttered. “Grand and Broadway are nothing but ripped-up asphalt and tossed cars from here to Ninth, and all of Chinatown and the Stadium are on fire. There’s some flying lizard-hyena that is exploding buildings apart and shooting lightning bolts at cars from the top of the Westin.”

“How many of them are here, and where’s the leader?”

“We’re guessing three to four thousand in the city limits. There’s others north of town and up the coast into Vancouver.”

I winced. That many demons running amok in Los Angeles would take forever to corral. Hopefully once I took care of Samael, I could get control of this mob, otherwise this was all going to fall apart. But that was step two. Step one was finding the youngest archangel and killing him.

“There’s more of you, right?” The guy glanced at my wings again. “I mean, I don’t want to insult you or doubt your abilities as an angel, but there are thousands of them. So unless you can just shout some holy word and smite them from here…”

“This is a delicate diplomatic process,” I managed a completely straight face as I described me killing Samael as if I were heading into a meeting. “These aren’t some monsters that came through a rift. They’re demons—the product of Fallen angels. They’ve come from Hel with a powerful leader. I need to deal with him before I handle the demons he’s got running all around your city.”

Three of the six gasped. One crossed himself and started praying. I’m pretty sure one wet his pants. The guy who’d been talking to me swallowed hard a few times. “Demons. Demons from hell have invaded our city?”

“I know. It totally sounds like one of those Marvel franchise movies, doesn’t it?” Here comes the part these guys were going to like even less—being the subjects of a real-life dystopian situation. “These demons might be here to stay if I can get them to stop killing people and throwing cars around. It’s kind of a new world order thing. Eventually I’d like to have some demon-controlled areas, but until then they’re just sort of visitors. We’ll try to make it so they don’t kill you all off or blow up all the buildings though.”

“The angels are allowing demons to remain here, with us?” There was an edge of anger to the man’s voice that made me think he was two seconds from picking up his gun and blowing more holes through my wings. “We’re going to have to live with demons in our cities?”

“Trust me, it won’t be any worse than living next to angels. Those guys are no fun at all. Bunch of assholes with their rules and endless meetings and stale pastries. No fun. Demons are fun. Kinda violent and you might wind up dead, but fun.”

“Wishing they’d all go back to where they came from and leave us alone,” the praying one muttered. “Heaven. Hell. Don’t care just as long as they get out of here.”

I shot him a sympathetic glance. “The angels have been kicked out of heaven, and you guys are their pet project, so sadly you’re just going to have to suck it up with that one. The demons aren’t so bad. Well, except for this pissed off Ancient who’s taken your city. He wants all the humans and angels dead, and the planet salted and burned into a dead lump of rock.”

“Given that choice, I think we’ll take the angels,” praying guy responded.

The leader narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re talking about them in the third person, but you’ve got wings. And they’re not the leathery bat wings or rotting mangy looking ones these demon guys have. Are you an angel or not?”

Here comes the part where I might get shot again. “Technically yes. I’m an Angel of Chaos. I’m the leader of the Fallen, the Iblis, the Ha-Satan and I sit on the Ruling Council of Angels to represent the interests of the demons and Hel.”

“You’re Satan.” The leader confirmed in a firm voice. They weren’t shooting at me again, but the one guy had resumed praying.

“Yep.”

“And you’re here to…?”

I looked around to make sure there were no Lows or other demons to overhear what I was about to say. “I’m here to kill the asshole in charge of this invasion, then have a chat with his demon army about what’s considered to be acceptable behavior if they want to remain here. Then I’ll spend the next gazillion years dealing with committees and meetings and representatives and governance frameworks to make all this work in a way that satisfies the angels, keeps the humans from getting their panties in a knot, and makes the demons happy, but not too happy.”

Shoot me now. My future wasn’t looking too bright. It was a shame Samael was such a revenge-obsessed dickhead because I’d love nothing more than to hand this sword back to him and resign my duties. That bowling with minivans had looked kinda fun. I could totally spend eternity doing stuff like that.

But no. I needed to kill Samael and face a lifetime of meetings and stale pastries.

The other guys looked to the leader. He shrugged. “Above my pay grade,” he told them before facing me once more. “What’s the leader guy look like? The one you’re searching for? Bear-lion? Snake-chicken? Grasshopper-poodle?”

“White-blond hair. Eyes so light blue they’re practically colorless. Golden skin. Ratty wings with patchy black feathers. He’s super good-looking. Totally hot. Well, until he rips the heart and lungs out of someone’s chest, that is.”

His eyes widened. “That guy? He’s been tearing through clubs over off Santa Monica and the Strip, killing people left and right. Said he’s looking for something iconic to call his home base and set up his empire.”

Huh. If I’d decided to take over LA, that’s exactly where I would have gone. Probably would have chosen something edgy and cool like The Snake Room, or The Abbey. The Roxy or the Whisky, maybe. That’s what I would have done, but I’ve spent over forty years living among the humans. I knew their cities. I kept reasonably abreast on what was trendy and hip. I wasn’t some demon who’d only been here on vacation a total of twenty days in the last eight hundred years. And I certainly wasn’t an Ancient who’d spent pretty much the last two-and-a half-million years in pouty, simmering hibernation. Was Samael taking advice from a younger, more well-traveled demon? Had he grabbed some human in the course of his rampage and asked him where to find the cool clubs?

Or…

“You guys got a car or a SWAT van or something?” I asked the leader.

He nodded slowly, giving me the side-eye.

“Can I get a lift?” West Hollywood and the Strip was a bit of a hike on foot, and I wanted to get there sooner rather than later, and I wanted to get the lay of the land rather than teleport and risk dropping right into the middle of some really bad shit.

He eyed my wings. “Don’t those things work? Can’t you just fly there?”

“Yeah, and get shot out of the sky? I’d hoped for a more stealthy arrival.”

His eyebrows went up. “And a SWAT van is stealthy?”

I nodded. “To demons a SWAT van is far more stealthy than me flying in with my big, feathery angel-wings. Now let’s go before this guy decides the mansions in Beverly Hills are more his style than expensive stores and nightclubs.”

The SWAT team declined to drive me down Sunset Boulevard right into the heart of West Hollywood, instead dropping my ass off at an In-N-Out Burger just past Highland with some flimsy excuse about having to deal with some issue at the wax museum. There was no one at the In-N-Out Burger to prepare me a snack, but I grabbed a large fountain drink anyway and hoofed it to the club where Samael was most likely to be setting up court—The Snake Room.

The building used to house a gangster-frequented nightclub, but like all retail spaces, it had changed hands more than a few times since I’d hung out in the city. There were a few things that put this club on the top of my list. One, it was in West Hollywood. Two, famous people hung out here and famous bands played here. Three, it was painted solid black on the outside. Yeah, the whole snake theme and history of heavy drug use by patrons was another plus, as was the sweet collection of pricey whiskies said to be stashed in a back room for the big spenders, but the main draw was that it was dark with the whole vibe that humans associated with demons and their ilk. We dug that. It made us feel special, like we had worshipers or at the very least admirers. The fact that these admirers were the pet project of the angels appealed even more.

I encountered a few demons on the way from the In-N-Out Burger. They ignored me, but as I got within a few blocks of The Snake Room, I noticed a whole lot more bear-lions and beetle-bunnies hanging around and these demons were eyeing me with some interest. I made no attempt to hide my wings, and transferred my giant cup of soda to my left hand, freeing my right one for the sword.

It appeared promptly, shiny and bright and humming with energy. Color me shocked.

The Snake Room looked pretty much like it had in that entertainment magazine I’d read a few years back. Black. Industrial. Plain white letters on the dome over the entrance and a big-ass ugly sign propped on top announcing the acts for the week. Some demon had rearranged the letters so the sign proclaimed that Die Ratbirds was the band.

Actually, maybe a demon hadn’t done that. I could totally see humans forming a band and calling it Die Ratbirds.

A demon with the top half of a rooster and the bottom half of a tiger stepped forward and swung his barbed scaled tail at me. I held up the sword and the guy had enough sense to pull the tail back, out of reach of my blade.

“I need to see Samael,” I told him.

He eyed the sword with unblinking, chicken eyes. “You that angel demon I heard about?”

Moron. “I’m the Iblis. An Angel of Chaos.”

One of his eyes shifted to my wings, giving him a truly psychotic expression. “How come your wings aren’t falling apart?”

“’Cause I’m not even a thousand years old and up until a year or so ago, I was an imp. Are you going to let me in to see Samael, or keep me out here talking until my wings really do rot and fall apart?”

“How’d an imp get to be the Iblis?”

Seems he was going to keep me here until my wings fell apart. “This.” I jabbed the sword through the eye staring at my wings. He screamed and jumped back, but not before my weapon had turned his one eye into a smoking crater. With paws flailing he attempted to recreate the eye and failed.

Interesting. I knew the sword could cut through a physical form and do damage to a being’s spirit-self. I knew it could choose to kill or choose to maim, or choose to do nothing at all, but this was the first time it had done exactly what I’d wanted it to do.

“Samael. Now,” I told the demon in my most calm, bored voice. “Or I’ll take out your other eye.”

It wouldn’t be as horrible as it sounded. He was a demon. He could still “see” even without eyes. And if he wanted he could always form additional eyes somewhere other than the burned-out sockets. But this guy didn’t seem smart enough to figure that out, so he danced backward a few steps, still pawing and trying to recreate the damaged eye as he waved me in.

Just as on the outside, it was hard telling what on the inside was original and what had been an addition or embellishment by the current owner/occupiers. The hallway entrance was full of lewd graffiti and symbols on a chipped concrete wall. Everything was black and red lights and neon, looking as through the club had recently hosted a party that involved swinging sledgehammers and shooting off flamethrowers. Huge Marshall amplifiers had been thrown into the glass shelves behind the bar and across the floor. I had to climb over one to get into the main club area.

The place was filled with demons, some of them fucking on the leather bench seats, some playing the band instruments on the stage and shouting out songs in a guttural roar, some swilling the bottles of booze that hadn’t been smashed by thrown amplifiers. I felt a sudden stab of nostalgia and longing to join them. They were having fun, just like demons should be doing. Just like I used to back before I had the sword and these wings.

I hid my wings, more to keep them safe from painful injury than any desire to go incognito, and pushed my way through the demons, occasionally using the sword to clear my path. As I reached the stage it became clear that Samael wasn’t here.

Actually he was here, just not in this room. I could feel his energy—that clear, cold, bright energy that Doriel had described to me. It was unlike anything I’d ever sensed before, and surprisingly it seemed untouched by nearly three million years in Hel. I’d expected there to be some heat around the edges, a whole lot of tarnish to the brightness. Doriel had said that Samael’s spirit-being was horribly scarred from the wars and his near-death injury by his brother. Why wasn’t his energy signature different? It was too clear. Too…perfect. Was that his weakness? Was Samael trying hard to recreate the angel he was before the fall? He’d kept to that beautiful physical humanlike form. Had he somehow forced his energy signature to remain bright and clean and sharp? There wasn’t anything he could do about his spirit-being and the scars it bore, but everything else hinted at an angel who longed to recreate, to stay in the past.

Why hadn’t he gone to Aaru with Remiel if that were the case? Maybe that was more fuel to the fire of his anger and hate. He couldn’t take back his past—he’d never be able to reclaim Aaru for the Ancients like he’d originally wanted to in the war. All that was left was revenge and destruction.

Destruction, not transformation. I’d always believed the two were interchangeable concepts, but with the End Times looming before me, I began to wonder if this destruction Samael had planned would be a final one. If he turned the world to ash, would anything new bloom from the ruins? If I devoured all of creation, would something fresh burst from my being? These were questions I hoped we’d never know the answer to.

I made my way through the crowd of demons unmolested, in part due to the sword I was carrying. The first few doors I tried led to offices and narrow hallways backstage. Finally, I found the right door and headed down the stairs into the room where the big-money drinkers came to get their party on.

The noise downstairs was deafening. It took me twenty minutes to shimmy my way around all the demons, even using the sword to force my way through. I didn’t want to burn or slice anyone with the weapon, because that would start a fight and it wouldn’t do me any good to have to chop my way through fifty or sixty demons before arriving at Samael’s feet, most likely injured and already exhausted. Plus, I didn’t want to announce my arrival too early. I wasn’t afraid he’d flee—this Ancient was far too arrogant for that. I was more concerned that he’d make me fight every demon in the place to get to him.

So I wormed my way through with lots of “get the fuck out of my way” and “let me through you stupid fuck.” Finally, I reached a clearing. Samael was in the center of a fifteen-foot empty space sitting on what looked like a chopped-up portion of one of the leather couches. It had been raised up on a huge table, elevating him enough to give him a view of the room, without him being so high up that I could see him until I’d reached the edge of the crowd. I could see now why all the demons were wedged in so tight. The room wasn’t all that big, and Samael with his circle of personal space took up most of it.

His eyes met mine, then traveled downward taking in my human form as well as my sword. He raised a hand and the room suddenly went silent.

“You received my note.”

“Yep.” Scintillating conversation so far.

“I think that belongs to me.”

I shrugged. “The sword seems to think otherwise. You are Samael, formerly the Iblis, formerly an Archangel, formerly an Angel of Chaos?”

“I am Samael, the Iblis, the leader of Hel. No formerly about any of that. Now give me the sword or I’ll kill you and take it myself.”

A figure disengaged from the shadows to his right and approached, stepping up on the table to stand beside Samael and whisper in his ear. It was Doriel. I should have known when Gregory told me about what happened at the Seattle gate that Doriel had been the Ancient to cross there. My heart felt heavy to see someone I’d hoped to count as an ally here beside the former Iblis. It would be even more difficult to kill him with this powerful Ancient by his side.

I noticed that she was studiously not looking at me. But that guilt or regret or whatever she felt probably wouldn’t be enough for me to count on her if things went south.

“So are you here to beg for me to be merciful? For me to spare my brother?” Samael sneered, suddenly looking very much like Gabe. “The imp with the Iblis sword. But you’re not quite an imp any more, are you? I’ve been told you have wings, that you’re an Angel of Chaos. How exactly did that happen?”

I stepped forward into the open space and revealed my wings. The demons behind me parted, less out of awe and respect and more because the damned things were so huge they blocked their view.

“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say I’m an Angel of Chaos. I’m the Iblis. And I’m not here to do any begging.”

He leaned back on his butchered sofa-chair and tapped his chin. “Really? If you’re not going to beg, nor surrender the sword to me, then why are you here?”

I took another step forward, keeping the sword casually by my side as if it were a harmless extension of my arm, or some sort of pointy walking stick. As long as I could keep him focused on me and not the weapon, as long as I could get him to concentrate on my words, I might get close enough for one blow. I’d just have to make that one blow count.

“I’m here to make an offer to both you and the demons serving as your army.”

He laughed. “An offer? And what happens if we refuse this offer, imp?”

I immediately thought of the horse head. “Accept the offer, or die.”

“At whose hands?” he sneered. “You came alone. You’re the only angel within a hundred miles of the city.”

“I don’t need any angels to enforce my will as the Iblis upon the demons under my rule.” My voice was calm and self-assured, and I felt the demons in the room shift nervously.

I felt them. All of them. Inside the room, out in the streets, spread across the city. Three thousand, six hundred forty-two demons.

No, three thousand, six hundred forty-one. You go, SWAT team guys.

“I am a member of the Ruling Council,” I said, taking another step forward. “I’m working toward having us granted a section of land here among the humans that will be under demon rule. There will be a common rule of law that will be honored in any area whether angel or demon or human controlled, but beyond that our lands will be our own. We’ll have a place here for those who want it. And we’ll have peace with the angels.”

“I don’t want peace with the angels,” Samael announced. “They’ll all be dead soon anyway.”

“And then what?” I prompted, realizing that every demon in the room was listening intently to our conversation. “When you’re done, all the humans will be dead. All the angels will be dead. This world will be completely destroyed. None of you Ancients can live in Aaru in a spirit-being form, and the demons don’t want to live there. Are we to just go back to Hel and stay there? No more vacations, just putter around messing with whatever elves are left there and the occasional dwarf?”

There was a soft murmur behind me. Demons tended to be rather shortsighted. Mass killing sounded like great fun until you realized there was nothing left to play with when you were done.

“They banished us,” Samael snarled. “We’re not even truly angels anymore because of what my brother did. They took Aaru from us. They deserve to die—all of them and their pet humans as well.”

I shrugged. “Nobody cares about that except you and a handful of Ancients. We go along with your plan, and we’re stuck in Hel, unable to teleport out, with the only gateways being to a dead place. You’ll be doing worse to us than the angels ever did.”

There was a nervous shuffling behind me at my words. Samael’s face twisted in anger. “We can teleport out—”

“Can you?” I smirked. “Because all my nine hundred and some years I’ve not known Ancients to teleport anywhere besides in and around Hel. Maybe a few can manage to come here without using the gates, and now Ancients can go to Aaru. If the gates fall, then we demons would have to rely on Ancients to leave Hel. And our only options would be a dead world and Aaru where our physical selves rot away and there is nothing to experience as far as sensation. What kind of life are you damming us to, Samael?” I took another step forward. “This is why I have the sword and you don’t. This is why I’m the Iblis, and you’re not. I’m the leader. I want what’s in our best interests. You just want to use these demons without a care for what happens to them when you’re done with your petty revenge.”

The demons behind me stirred. Mine. They were mine. I felt them—felt their energies shift and align with my own.

“Liar,” he snarled. “She lies to all of you. I am Samael. I am the most powerful of all the Ancients, the true Iblis. Once we kill the humans and the angels, there is no limit to what we can do.”

I took another step. “The most powerful,” I mocked. “Your own brother nearly killed you. You took the sin of pride too far. You got every one of the Angels of Chaos banished. Everything that happened to them is your fault. It’s all on your head, and now you want demons to pay for your folly.”

“You’re Michael’s fucktoy,” he screamed at me before turning to address the demons. “She’s a traitor to our kind, joining with the enemy. She’s on their side, not ours. Sense her energy? She reeks of Michael.”

“That’s because I seized a portion of his energy and devoured it,” I told him. “That’s how I got these wings. That’s how I turned from an imp to an angel. I ripped away a portion of the spirit-being of the most ancient, powerful archangel alive and devoured it. Think about that when you start boasting that you’re the most powerful being in Hel. Think about why the Iblis sword is in my hand and not another’s.”

There was an instinctive recoil at my mention of devouring. No one liked or trusted a devouring spirit. Demons would happily do all sorts of things most beings would consider revolting, but they drew the line at taking the spirit-self, the personal energy, from another and devouring it.

Some things were disturbing and frightening even to demons, and devouring was it. I might never have the respect of all the demons in Hel, but I’d take this wary unease and I’d go with it.

And it might give me an extra second of hesitation I needed. Realizing I was out of time, I sprang forward, sword upraised, and swung. The Iblis sword came to life with a hum, and as crappy as my swordsmanship skills were, my aim this time was true. The sword caught Samael’s shoulder and sliced through like a hot knife through butter. If he hadn’t instinctively spun to the side, if Doriel hadn’t jumped forward to slam into me, then I would have finished what Gregory had started two-and-a-half-million years ago—I would have sliced the youngest archangel in two and killed him.

Samael screamed and hit me with a blast of energy. I reversed direction with the sword to absorb some of it, but the rest tore through my physical body, slicing through my spirit-self. Struggling to regain my focus, I plowed an elbow into Doriel’s face and blasted enough energy into her to knock her off the stage. Samael shot me again, and this time I managed to block it all with the sword, struggling to keep the thing in my grasp as it vibrated and heated up with the second blow.

I swung the blade and the Ancient ducked. Letting the sword’s momentum carry me around, I dismissed it and reached forward to grab Samael with both hands.

Clothing.

Flesh.

Spirit-being.

I grabbed and pulled, fighting against the pain as Samael frantically hit me again and again with everything he had, burning my spirit-being as I tried to devour him. He struggled and pulled back, and I dug in, beginning to feel my hold slip as I lost focus with the pain. Claws and makeshift weapons tore at my physical body. Other demons pummeled me with energy blasts of their own. Samael began to slide from my grasp and I wondered whether I should change tactics, let go, and summon my sword once more. But I wasn’t sure I would have any better success with a sword against two Ancients and all these demons. No, my best chance was to devour Samael. If I could do that, all the demons would fall in line.

I heard Doriel shout, then felt Samael rip away from me, leaving a chunk of his spirit-self in my grasp. It wasn’t enough. I reached forward to grab him again, only to feel something soft and silky sliver over my head and down my body. It was cold then hot, slimy then prickly, and it coated my energy with a silicon slipperiness. I couldn’t fix my wounds. I couldn’t reach Samael or anyone. I couldn’t access any energy for defensive or offensive use. And although the demons on the outside of the net couldn’t stab me, they sure as fuck could continue to beat the holy shit out of me with their fists, booze bottles, and broken bits of furniture.

“Kill her!” Samael screamed. I could hear the agony in his voice, and in spite of my own pain, I grinned to know I’d hurt him. And I had a nice little chunk of his spirit-self squirreled away tight inside me. Fucker. He was never getting that back. Never.

“No!” Doriel’s voice rang out. “You want her alive, Samael, not dead. She’s your eldest brother’s chosen partner. They’re a joined pair. You want him to come here and face you? Now you’ve got the perfect bait. Destroy the city and he’ll just send his enforcers. Take her, offer to let her go, and he’ll kneel before you, his neck bare to you.”

Bitch. And how humiliating would it be for Gregory to have to come rescue me? Fuck that. I went to summon my sword, the weapon that would easily cut through this elven net and set me free, only to hesitate. Bursting out of this net surrounded by demons and two Ancients, and without the time to repair any of my physical wounds would put me at a huge disadvantage. It would be better to wait, to time and plan this escape and hopefully in my second attack, be more like an angel than an imp.

“I’m not letting her go free,” Samael snapped. “She took a part of my spirit-self. The bitch devoured a chunk of me. I’m killing her.”

I could practically hear Doriel’s shrug. “Then kill her. Lie to Michael, and when he’s dead, you can kill this imp as well. Hang her from the ceiling, let the others throw bottles at her, then send Michael a message to come get his bitch or you’ll send chunks of her spirit-self to him in little boxes.”

Samael was silent for a few seconds. “What about the sword? I want the sword. I want it back.”

“Then call it to you.” Was there a note of derision in Doriel’s voice? “Clearly it has abandoned her or she wouldn’t have resorted to trying to devour you. What angel would do such a disgusting thing? Not even a Low would do that? Obviously the sword decided she wasn’t worthy and she had no other choice but to turn to such a repulsive method of attack.”

My breath quickened. Doriel had fought beside Samael in the war. They’d been close. She had to have known the sword and its odd quirks almost as well as Samael himself had.

And she knew that I devoured. It wasn’t a big secret. Was she lying for me? Had this net been less about capturing me and more about saving me? Because in all honesty, I’d been losing that battle. I hadn’t gotten a good grip on Samael, and between his attacks and the demons, it would have been a matter of minutes until they’d gotten the upper hand and killed me.

“Hang her from the ceiling then.”

I felt myself hoisted upward, felt the whack of some rather hefty whisky bottles against my sides, bled all over the net with wounds I couldn’t repair, and suffered the agony of damage to my spirit-self I couldn’t fix even if I’d been out of the net. The whole time I concentrated, trying to make out what Samael, Doriel, and the demons were discussing.

One was sent off to my house in Maryland to deliver a message meant for Gregory. That demon wasn’t expected to return. We didn’t have any problems killing the messenger, but those in my household would hesitate to do so. Amusingly, Nyalla would be this demon’s greatest threat. She’d lock him up in my cellar without breaking a sweat and torture the guy until he was telling her every last one of his secrets. And it’s not like she’d have to physically harm the guy herself. Between Boomer and Diablo, the demon would be begging for mercy before the sun went down.

But still…the thought of how upset she’d be, how worried over me… I didn’t want Nyalla to worry. And there was that chance she’d decide to come out and rescue me herself, hellhound and demon-horse by her side, rather than wait for Gregory to take action. My girl was impulsive, more like a demon than an angel in that regard. Hopefully Gabe would be there when this demon messenger arrived to keep her from catching the next flight to LA.

The messenger demon clearly gone, Samael turned to other business at hand. One by one he sent demons out, supposedly using a map of the city to direct them to their assigned area. Once there, they were to destroy every building, tear up roads, and kill every human they met. After they’d done that, they were to work their way to the city limits. This was the small-scale of what Samael wanted to do.

This guy didn’t realize it yet, but he had clearly bitten off more than he could chew. Even if he emptied Hel of demons, marshalled every last one of them, he’d still only have a hundred thousand or so to kill ten or twenty thousand angels and seven billion humans on a sizable planet.

Seven billion humans. It hit me and I started to laugh. Ever since I’d joined the Ruling Council I’d been warning Gregory about the dangers of discounting how a lesser species could overpower a greater one through sheer numbers. It was my old fire ant analogy. Seven fucking billion humans. These demons would be shot, blown up, run over, and burned, and that would be before they left LA.

Three thousand, six hundred thirty. The SWAT team, an actress-wannabe with a revolver, and a bald guy with a Prius. Yep, it was only a matter of time.

Right now most of the humans were scared, hovering in their homes and waiting for the angels or the militia to save them. In less than twenty-four hours, they’d get sick of hanging out in their basements with bottled water and a crank radio, grab their shotguns, rifles, and oversized SUVs, and take matters into their own hands.

Heaven help these demons. And heaven help the angels if they decided to push these “rules” too far. Right now everyone was awestaruck, but a few thousand disgruntled humans would be all it would take to start a fire. Seven billion of them. We’d kill maybe a billion or two before they decimated us, slowly nibbled us to death like a swarm of fire ants. It wasn’t the humans I needed to protect, it was the demons.

This Samael idiot was going to get them killed. He was going to get my beloved and all the angels I cared about killed. He was even going to get some of the angels I didn’t care about killed. And I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.

Carefully I eased my phone out of my pocket and sent a text, because elven nets might be good at holding in demon and angel energy, but they didn’t do shit about cell phone signals.

Then I slid the phone back into my pocket and waited.