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I focus on her wound. “How bad is it?” I ask softly as I approach her.
“Which part?” she asks bitterly. “The cut, or my ego?”
“The cut was my greatest concern, but now I’m not so sure. Talk to me.”
“He came to get me from the bedroom not long after you left. He told me that Cephalus was going to send a counter strike right then, and that I was wanted at the departure point. He said you wanted to talk to me before you left. I was so afraid for you, so afraid I’d be too late to say goodbye, that I didn’t even think. I let him lead me all through the palace, past everywhere that would have made sense, into places no self-respecting royal would set foot in.”
She swallows forcefully, like taking bitter medicine. “I didn’t stop to think that it was a trick. I never even considered someone would be so conniving, that anyone would hate me so much that they would use my feelings for you against me.”
She’s glaring at the body on the floor, her eyes shining with tears of rage. “Why is he dead?”
“Looks like a curse,” I tell her. “A sort of self-destruct switch to protect the person controlling him. Most curses like that can only be triggered by spoken word—they’re an ancient practice. Others are triggered by specific actions. Only a very few, very powerful curses can be triggered by thought. Whoever sent him didn’t want him even thinking about betraying them.”
Her jaw works as her fury builds.”I’m so sick of this shit,” she spits. “I’m sick of watching my back, sick of knowing that someone wants me dead—that someone this cowardly wants me dead.” She grinds her teeth and balls her hands into fists. “All the sneaking around, the petty mind games—using animals and servants to do their dirty work—I’m a human in a world full of demons, and whoever this bitch is doesn’t even have the balls to approach me directly.”
She turns her furious face up at me. She’s never looked more beautiful than she does right now, with all that spirited fire lighting up her eyes and lending a splash of scarlet to her face.
“I will not be bested by someone like that,” she swears through her teeth. “I will not be taken down by someone who has to force the powerless to do what they are too afraid to do for themselves.”
Her gorgeous fury pulls at me and I respond, palming the back of her head and pulling her face to mine. I want to crush the bitterness out of her mouth, want to untwist her lips with my own. I drink her in eagerly, loving the taste of fury on her tongue. If only every tongue was so compliant to my wishes.
The thought sets off a chain reaction in my mind and I pull away from her. Is it possible? His body is in rough shape, but death would have taken care of some of that. I find myself gazing down at the body, frowning.”Lucifer? What is it?”
“There might still be a way to get our answers,” I tell her, feeling the words out as I speak them.
“From him?” She shoots a horrified look at the twisted, broken body. “I’m no demonologist, but I’m pretty sure that guy is dead.”
“Demons are very hard to kill,” I remind her. “And sometimes, in Hell, the dead can speak.”
Chapter23
Sophia
I hopehe’s talking about Ouija board magic or something. I really don’t want to see this creature talk again now, with his face all bloated and disfigured from his cursed death. The sheer cowardice of the attack continues to anger me. This unknown attacker, whoever they are, didn’t just use a proxy; they doubted their proxy’s loyalty so thoroughly that they killed him with a curse.
I turn my back on the disfigured demon, wincing as the fading adrenaline allows me to feel the sting of my wound. “It’s pathetic,” I say out loud.
“What is?”
“The character of whoever keeps trying to kill me. Sneaky and underhanded I can accept, but insecure too? It makes my skin crawl to be the focus of attention for someone like that. I’m sick of it.” I look up at Lucifer, giving him a firm, even look. “I don’t care how it has to be done. I want answers. If that thing can give them to us, let’s make it happen.”
He gives me a half-smile with a glimmer of pride in his eyes. “We will,” he tells me. “But only after we take care of this.” He touches my arm just under my cut where blood has stained my skin. I’m still bleeding, not quickly, but steadily. I glance from my wound to the body on the floor, then give Lucifer a questioning look.
“If we leave him here, the stewards will take him,” I remind Lucifer.
Lucifer shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, and waves his hand. A shimmer, just like the one which crawls over his body when he shifts between forms, ripples over the hall. The body disappears in seconds, leaving nothing but an empty corridor.
“He’s still there,” Lucifer explains. “Just hidden. It’s not a permanent solution. As soon as someone trips over him, the illusion will be broken, but it’ll buy us time.”
“Convenient,” I comment as I let him lead me away. “You must have gotten away with all kinds of things when you were a kid. Were you ever a kid? Or was it so long ago that you can’t even remember what it was like?”
He gives me a concerned look and leads me around a corner and through a little back passage intended to be used by servants if I’m judging the appearance correctly.“Are you really curious, or are you just talking to keep yourself from panicking?”
Impatience rankles at the base of my skull. “I’m not in danger of panicking,” I adamantly proclaim. “I’m a little shaky, that’s all. Coming down off adrenaline is a bitch sometimes.”
“Ah,” he says. “I understand.” We take a sudden right turn and a few minutes later he leads me through a small door and into a room which is either a small warehouse or a huge pantry. A little of both, maybe. It didn’t really occur to me to think of what the kitchens around here must look like. Lucifer leads me through the pantry and out the door on the other side, where a small table sits between the pantry and a counter. Beyond the counter, the kitchen stretches away, bigger and more complex than any restaurant kitchen I’ve ever seen the inside of.
“It’s quiet,” I comment as I sit shakily down in the chair Lucifer pulls out for me. “I kind of expected cooking and preparation to be a round-the-clock job around here.”
