The love…
Ambri is waiting for me when I emerge from the back room. I’ve returned to my demonic form, sending the pain of Ashtaroth’s branding to sleep for now. It will wake with a fiery vengeance the moment I revert back to my human body and make the new cut on my arm feel like a kiss.
My second-in-command has intelligence enough to appear as if he hadn’t heard my screams. Every demon in the tavern, in fact, averts their eyes.
But for one.
A lesser duke is playing cards with another demon. He looks away but too slowly for my like. The cards in his hands drop from trembling fingers when he feels my attention.
“Good evening, Druj,” I say, leaning over the table. “Might I borrow your dagger?”
“My Lord Casziel, I-I did not mean to—”
“Your dagger, Druj.”
He withdraws it from his waist sash and hands it over. His friend tilts back in his chair and raises his fan of cards like a shield. Without a word, I take the dagger by the blade, flip it nimbly in my hand, then drive it into Druj’s lone eye. Brown and green ichor sprays over the table.
His companion tosses his cards down with a sigh. “Pity. T’was a good game, too.”
I lean in to Druj. “Do I make my point?”
The demon nods, the dagger nodding with him, and then he slumps dead over the table, driving the blade deeper into his head. Blood pools.
“Good.”
I head for the bar while behind me, a cloud of foul smoke plumes and roils. In moments, Druj’s chair will be empty, him having Crossed Over to the Other Side where he may consider his actions.
I put on a smirk to remind those gathered—including Ambri, watching everything with keen eyes—who I am. But disgust churns within.
“Good evenin’, my lord,” Eistibus says, placing a glass of wine in front of me and replacing Ambri’s with a fresh one. The djinn wisely backs away, leaving us to our business.
“You were merciful,” Ambri observes. “The Nightbringer would have burned this tavern to the ground and every demon in it.”
“I’m not in the mood for your commentary, Ambri. Make your report.”
“As you wish. Guy Baker. Age twenty-seven. Graduated from Columbia University with a degree in environmental science. Honors student, gives to charity, recycles…” Ambri smirks into his wine. “Flosses daily, calls his mother once a week, always tips twenty-percent—”
“Ambri.”
“He’s nauseatingly decent, is my point. A few minor demons on him. No one special.”
“Who?”
“Servitors of Belphegor and Rishk.”
I nod, thinking. “So he’s a little vain, has tendencies toward jealousy. But he’s a good man?”
“It would seem so.” Ambri heaves a sigh. “A pity.”
Guy’s light shines bright. And must, for her.
“Was there anything else, my lord?”
I sip my wine, debating. Confiding in a demon is never wise, but the turmoil in my mind and heart are distinctly human and Ambri spends an inordinate amount of time on This Side. Humans are his playthings, on the battlefield and in the bedroom. I’d never call him soft, but he’s not nearly as bloodthirsty as the rest of my Brethren. A romantic…if insatiable sexual appetite is romance.
I’d have to ask Lucy.
A small, soft smile touches my lips and Ambri sighs.