“Well, we’ve been doing team-building exercises involving weapons practice all week, so yeah, I should say so,” the tarantula said. What was his name? Xe’hel’thir. Morgan would have called his tone waspish except that seemed racist. “Maybe if someone had filled out the right forms, none of this would have happened. I’ve got six hundred and sixty-six spawn to feed, I don’t need this right now.”
“You can’t blame this on me,” Lucareoth protested.
“Can’t I?” Xe’hel’thir looked like he would have liked eyelids so he could have narrowed his eyes properly. He did try to cross his arms, but tangled the axe handles with each other. “Somehow your name keeps being around more than you are. I thought you were supposed to be stopping House Valefar over on the Plane of Consumable Souls.”
“I’m trying,” Lucareoth said.
“No, you’re dragging a Consumable Soul around like a lunchbox,” Xe’hel’thir countered. “And broadcasting how much you want to keep her safe instead of hitting any of your KPIs. Thanks for that, by the way. At least the 360-degree review will be easier this year with a target the whole team can get behind.”
“I’ve got a plan,” Lucareoth said stubbornly. “But first I need to find out what Bel’aliol wants.”
“Probably your head on a platter.” Xe’hel’thir twirled an axe experimentally. It slipped out of his hand. He tried to grab it with his other hand, and his other hand, and his other hand, but each hand already had its own axe. Morgan and Lucareoth leapt backward. The axe bobbled. The demon yelped. The axe head buried itself in the cubicle wall next to them. A shriek came from the far side of the wall.
A cloud of bees rose up angrily, swarming together over the wall.
“Do you mind?” a thousand humming voices chorused. “That influx of souls blew our prepayment assumptions, now the entire tranche’s average life is shorter than the original estimate, and I need to recalculate the financial projections by the end of the day.”
Morgan had very briefly dated a guy working in mortgage-backed securities, before deciding that his endless bond-math lectures weren’t worth the steak dinners. This sounded like how he used to complain about when people successfully prepaid their mortgages and didn’t owe as much interest. Except these weren’t mortgages, it was an influx of souls… “Holy shit, are you talking about the tsunami in southeast Asia last week?”
“Is that what happened? It’s really inconvenient to have so many souls’ contracts cut short, they need to stop doing that. Point is, we already lost two hours to the siege warfare lunch-and-learn, Niseraz ate my direct report, and now I have to finish this all by myself. Stop screwing around!”
Xe’hel’thir looked around, embarrassed, and turned his humiliation on them. “Go off to Bel’aliol, and we’ll see how smug you are then. Oh, and better make sure you don’t run into Niseraz.”
“What’s wrong with Niseraz?” Lucareoth said cautiously.
“Let’s just say she’s taking ‘take no prisoners’ to new heights,” Xe’hel’thir chuckled. It would have sounded more nonchalant if he hadn’t also been tugging ineffectually at the embedded hand axe.
They almost made it. A foot or two short of Bel’aliol’s door, someone called out for them to halt.
“Get to the war room,” Niseraz barked. “Bel’aliol’s about to rally the troops.”
“We’re rallied,” Lucareoth sighed. “That’s why we’re supposed to be in his office, for the rallying. Also, since when did we change the name of the conference room?”
The moth-headed demon had a flak helmet jammed onto her head, her delicate antennae sticking out of holes that looked hand-drilled. “When we started making battle plans to outflank the competition. Where have you been?”
“Trying to prevent the war, thanks so much for asking,” Lucareoth snapped.
“Why the Earth would you want to do that?” Niseraz demanded. “We’ve finally got a chance to get back at the Valefar bastards for San Francisco.”
“Wasn’t San Francisco more than a hundred years ago?” Morgan ventured.
“Yeah, and it sucked. They ate my fiancé, the assholes. Now it’s time to settle up accounts.” She looked at Morgan with a withering disdain that easily jumped the species barrier. “If I were you, girlie, I’d scuttle back to your home plane. Your boy here doesn’t have the killer instincts it takes to survive.”
Morgan had had enough. “You sound like someone tossedThe Art of Warand theHarvard Business Reviewin ablender. We were summoned by the head boss, we’re here to see the head boss. Move.”
She pushed past the demon, her bravado already crumbling. She muttered, “Sorry about your fiancé.”
Lucareoth hurried along behind her.
“How old are you?” she asked him in a low voice. If Niseraz had had a fiancé in 1906… was she dating someone who could have put the Regency back in Regency romance?
“Uh, in Earth years… carry the three…” He had to pull out his phone. “Twenty-four-ish? I’m the new kid in the office, it’s why I keep getting the crap assignments.”
She heaved a sigh of relief, likely her only one for the day. Lucareoth paused as they came up to Bel’aliol’s door. He took a big breath. She grabbed his hand. He squeezed back. Then, of mutual accord, they separated. Lucareoth knocked hesitantly and the door swung open.
Gone was the elegant suit and expensive tie. Bel’aliol wore burnished armor, like the dress plate Morgan had seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was heavily engraved with battle scenes, little demons stabbing and gnawing on and disemboweling other tiny demon figures. It really deserved to be displayed in a case with explanatory label decks and maybe a “making of” video.
“Report.” Bel’aliol’s voice was silky with menace. He’d replaced his fountain pen with a dagger, Morgan noticed. He toyed with it, his movements unhurried. She’d seen enough movies to expect him to slam it through someone’s hand at any moment. “I can tell you don’t want to tell me. Start talking until that feeling stops.”
