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I muttered under my breath and caught sight of my devil smiling. I matched his smile and deluded myself that we were here for a nice, relaxing trip and not to commit a murder and endure a possible fight to the death.
As a circle, we left the others in the garden and followed Taj inside the house and down a flight of clean stone steps to the basement. The empty basement. Huh?
Not to be a spoiled brat, but where was my surprise?
"It's a basement," I repeated, unable to hide my disappointment.
"What thefuck?"Joseph roared, stalking past me and glaring at the walls. "Where's all our shit?"
"Good fucking question," Taj rumbled, the dark look in his eye foretelling someone's suffering. "This is our armoury, Lina. I planned to arm you so you'd be even deadlier, but apparently we've been robbed."
My pulse skipped. I gave Taj big, sparkling heart-eyes. "You were going to give me a knife?"
"Several. And I had a short, serrated sword earmarked for you. This isbullshit."
Awwww. My heart thumped fast in my chest. "We'll have to make-do with the weapons we have." It's not like we weren't already planning to set a trap in the Feared Tower anyway. We came prepared. But this was sweet.
"My plan relied on several things in this basement," Ark said, cold and flat,furiousinside even if his expression didn't remotely hint at it.
"Well, it’s a good thing mine doesn't," I said, giving them a big smile when they all turned to look at me. "I love this. All of us together, no comas, no dying. This is how it's always meant to be."
"What's your plan, little morsel?" X asked, anxiety winding through his soul.
"So, don't freak out," I began, "but step one—I bait Eidolon into the open. Step two—you sneak up behind him and trap him. Step three—we bludgeon him into a smear of blood and set the smear alight so there's nothing left of him."
"No," Arkan argued, his hands flexing at his sides. "We’re not using you as bait when you were just thrown into a wall and you have hell knows what injuries."
I waved a hand. "I'm used to it, it’ll be fine.”
"It'll work," Dev input, his head tilted as he considered me, the tops of his horns brushing the ceiling. "Eidolon is invested in you, whether he'll admit it or not. And like you know him, he knows you. He'll expect you to ditch us and face him alone. So we give him what he expects."
"I'll go with her," X volunteered abruptly, and there was a crazy look in his eye that I didn't like.
"No, you won't," Dev argued, giving him a stern look that turned me on way too much to be appropriate. "We're going to need you with us. Avie will go in, distract Eidolon; the Malefic circle will handle his followers; and we'll take out anyone else with Eidolon so Avie has a clear shot."
Great plan. Flawless, in fact.
Naturally, it didn't play out like that.
36
Of all the places for Eidolon's signature to lead, a church bake sale was not what I expected. It occurred to me that he was playing me, and he might have led me here intentionally—he could have easily left a trail of breadcrumbs for me here with his magical signature—but it was too late to back out now.
I couldn’t remember when I began sensing him. It must have been after he started dosing me with demon blood, but I knew for a fact it was stronger now he’d become a rabid lizard. His oily signature was all over this cute little church, practically blasting from the steeple and clock tower like a green miasma until I threw up a little.
It didn't stop me opening the church gates with a creak and giving a big, beaming smile to the three little old ladies selling knitted goods. Oh mygod,there was a rainbow cardigan that would look so cute on Eileen.
No, Avie, focus!
Tables full of wares followed the flagstone path around the church to the small field behind it, where there was a full bake sale in progress. Eidolon was here, hiding behind towers of cupcakes and Victoria sponges. Had he chameleon-ised himself into one of the blue rinse brigade, walking around shaking donation buckets?
I kept a sharp eye on the old ladies as I joined the sluggish flow of people moving down the rows of tables, eyeing their goods and chatting to vendors. There was a heavy cloud of talc and perfume in this crowd, but it was so much better than brimstone and rot that I sucked it down to clear my lungs.
A questioning shudder came down my bond to Joseph. I sent back a single tug. No Eidolon yet.
It was disorienting as hell to be back here, among normal people. Amonghumans.I kept seeing their smooth pink faces and non-spiky brown arms and jolting.We're definitely not in Hell anymore, Toto.
"Aveline!" someone cried, smoky and female. "Oh my god, Aveline!"
