Mist nodded. “He’s hiding behind wards in the Gaspé region. He thinks I’m still hunting him and that I don’t know where he is. I had planned to tell him he was free as long as no one else caught him, but…”
“You’re going on a suicide mission, so you can’t, and you want me to go.” Bel did not look impressed. “Why not ask someone else?”
“If I do, then they will ask why I can’t go myself.”
A vein bulged in his temple. “So you asked me because I’m a soulless bastard who doesn’t give a fuck if you die.”
Mist wouldn’t have put it in so many words, but it was close enough. Belial was older than he could fathom, and a certain detachment from everything had always lurked in his eyes. He was the epitome of apathetic—so long as the flames of his temper were not stoked.
Bel’s jaw shifted. “You know what? Fuck you, Mishetsu. Discard my offer of help. It didn’t mean shit anyway. Go on your suicide mission and lie to your witch. You want me to watch out for her, fine. You want me to find Eligos and scare the piss out of him, fine. But just know that I think you’re a fucking idiot, and I’d like nothing more than to punch a hole through your skull. And if you don’t get out of my sight right now, I will.”
He reached over, smudged the edge of the seal, and opened the door. “Go on. Get out of here. Go kill yourself.”
Mist’s stomach churned. “It’s the only way.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Go.”
Belial’s eyes burned with wrath as Mist searched them, looking for something. He wasn’t sure what he sought. Bel had given him the promises he wanted. There was no reason to feel conflicted.
Without another word, Mist walked past him out in the hall. The door slamming behind him made him flinch, but he didn’t turn around.
* * *
“No damn wayam I hanging out in a house full of demons! Have you lost your mind?”
Lily winced as her sister’s shrill voice distorted the voice speaker. “Mist said there are wards around the apartment, and as long as we stay within them, no one can find us here. He said he has a plan, and he just wants us to hang out here where it’s safe for the time being. It’s not forever.”
“I don’t give a damn about the stupid wards. I can make wards myself. I’m not going anywhere near that flat.”
“This is serious, Ris. Please.”
There was a pause. “Tell me why you actually believe the demon when he says you’re in danger. I thought he went back to Hell. For god’s sake, Lil, I thought you’d given up on all this ‘there are good demons’ crap!”
She wasn’t going into that right now. “Mist said there’s some prophecy about blood-born twins. It sounds silly to me, but he said that regardless of whether it’s true, Paimon believes it, and she’s hunting us.”
She paused, phone pressed to her ear, waiting for Iris’s response.
And got nothing but silence.
“Iris? Hellooo? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” she croaked, and Lily instantly knew.
“You’ve heard of it.” Her heart skipped a beat. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Iris ignored her questions. “So you’re saying some uber powerful demon is coming after us? How’d he find us, though?”
“Well… I summoned Mist.”
“You didwhat?”
Lily tipped her face up. “Can we just talk about this from here? When we’re safely behind the wards?”
“If you think you can be all like, ‘Oh by the way, I summoned a demon. Okay, byeee!’ and then expect me to talk about it later, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Fine,” she snapped. Her sister could be the most infuriating person on the planet. “I summoned Mist out of Hell because he was taken back by Paimon, who controls him by these horrible brands.”
“So far precisely zero percent of that makes sense.” Iris snorted. “The demon was in trouble, so you just summoned him on the fly? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds? Lil, you’d have to be crazy powerful to manage that.”
