Even in the darkness, there was no mistaking the outline of a pair of enormous wings. Spread wide, arcing above his towering form. Nor was there any missing the set of glowing yellow eyes. No iris or sclera, just yellow all the way across, with vertical slits for pupils.
It opened its mouth. Every tooth was a fang. There were two rows, top and bottom, one after the next of razor-sharp, lethal saw blades made for tearing into flesh like it was butter.
Eva opened her mouth too. And screamed.
14
La Belle et la Bête
Belial hunched on a flimsy barstool that threatened to collapse under his weight, lost in his thoughts. Currently, the band was between sets, and old-school hip-hop beats were thumping from the speakers while people took the chance to mingle and refill their drinks. That meant bodies were pushing up against him from all sides, invading his personal space and threatening to make his temper snap.
He tried to ignore it, still reeling about what he’d witnessed before Ash had fled. The curse had malfunctioned. Somehow. It had something to do with the music, but he didn’t understand how.
Ash had been bound by the angel Raphael after a big-time transgression, and it wasn’t like the heavenly prick had stuck around to explain the mechanics of it afterward. The only thing Bel could think of was that since Asmodeus was a demon, and music wasn’t exactly a demonic pursuit, something had happened while he was playing to counteract the binding.
They needed to experiment further, figure out what triggered the reversal, because Bel was certain tonight’s malfunction was only a temporary reprieve. Most likely, whatever had caused the curse to lift would fade after a short period of time and Ash would be back to his invisible, colorless existence.
They had a month until the dose of Nephilim blood Naiamah found wore off, and Bel planned to spend every spare second that he wasn’t searching for more blood—or a more permanent solution—investigating this new loophole in Asmodeus’s curse.
He was excited for his brother. He was also stressed as hell because he knew everyone was going to look to him as the provider of all the fucking answers. Answers he didn’t have.
Someone stumbled into him with enough force to jar him slightly to one side, and his temper flared. His hands flexed around the bar counter enough to dent the solid wood, and the burn in his eyes told him there were flames flickering in them. He squeezed them shut, taking deep breaths.In, and out. Inner peace. Inner fucking p—
Another person bumped him, and he snapped.
He lurched to his feet, stool screeching against the scratched wood floor, spun around, and seized the offending human by his throat. The man took one look at Bel’s eyes and tried to scream, except he couldn’t because Bel was cutting off his air supply.
The human’s friends caught on to what was happening quickly enough, and pretty soon there was a whole lot of “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” and “Calm down, man!” and general commotion. It all faded into a dull roaring at the back of Belial’s skull while he wrestled with the urge to burst into flames and send the whole place straight to Hell.
“Let the human go, brother,” Raum growled. The shifty bastard had just appeared from nowhere.
Belial’s fingers flexed. The humans around him continued to shout and panic, but his rage drowned it out like a river rushing in his ears.
“Just open your fingers and let him go,” Raum said, that deep voice the only sound to penetrate the din. “Think about it. You don’t want to make a scene here or Ash won’t be able to come back and play music.”
Asmodeus. The curse. His brothers.With a monumental expulsion of will, Belial forced his fingers to unclench and released the human.
“Yo, what the fuck, man?” someone was saying, trying to step up and get in Bel’s face.
The human he’d just let go of stumbled back and then grabbed his friend’s arm and shook his head with a panicked expression. The poor bastard had looked into Bel’s demon eyes and knew better than to fuck with him. After having his life spared, he likely wanted nothing more than to get out of there.
He had good survival instincts, then.
“S-s-sorry ’bout that,” he croaked at Belial without meeting his gaze, and then he dragged his friends back into the crowd.
The remaining bystanders eyed Bel warily, their murmurs lost under the thump of the house music, but eventually, the crowd shifted, and the vibe returned to normal.
“You need to get your shit together,” Raum said as Bel swung his head around to pin him with a glare. “If you can’t keep yourself from murdering people when we go out, you should stay home.”
Belial grunted, turning and sitting his ass back on that goddamn barstool. “People were bumping into me. I didn’t like it.”
“Then don’t come to a packed bar, idiot.” Raum glanced around. “Shit, and now I lost Meph. Thanks a lot, dipshit.”
Bel glanced over his shoulder to see if he could spot his loose cannon of a brother anywhere and saw nothing but a sea of human faces.
Raum shot him a glare. “I’ll go find him. Just... stay here. And don’t kill anyone.” He slipped into the crowd, shaking his head.
Mumbling a curse, Bel spun back around and planted his elbows on the bar, dragging his fingers through his hair and trying to force his mind back to thoughts of Ash’s curse and not violence. Raum was right—if he couldn’t keep his shit together, he needed to stay home.
