It didn’t escape Eva’s notice that they looked exactly like the brothers of the man she’d been chatting up at the bar all night—minus the wings, of course—but her brain wasn’t ready to make that connection yet.
And then there was the fifth... thing. Creature. Whatever the hell she was looking at.
It was short, maybe four feet tall, with slate-gray skin, a hunched spine, and enormous elf-like ears that flared out from its flat, bald skull. Bat wings arched above its head, and its face was adorned with a flattened, piglike snout and a pair of fangs that poked upward from a drastic underbite.
It looked like a pug crossed with Gollum. A pig crossed with a bat. A monkey crossed with Yoda who had bashed its face into a brick wall too many times. It was just ugly in every possible way.
Then, while she was still struggling to make sense ofthat, the red-skinned man turned his head, and she saw his face. It was crimson like the rest of him, and his eyes were completely black, all the way through. No iris, no sclera, just black.
And yet... there was no mistaking those graceful features, that long, straight nose, or the hair falling down his bare back, between those impossible leathery wings.
Ash.
Or should she say... Asmodeus.
Ash scanned the club briefly to make sure there were no loitering humans. It appeared everyone had fled, and just in time too, because the gargoyle sent after them had shifted shape. And so had he and his brothers—for the purpose of intimidating the gargoyle—though Ash was the only one in his full demon glory. Which, in Meph and Bel’s case, was a very good thing.
Meph never shifted because there was a strong likelihood he’d never shift back—a terrifying thought once one got acquainted with the psychopathic terror that was his demon form. And nobody wanted Bel in full demon mode either. Not unless they wanted to burn the building down. Or start the apocalypse.
Even if there were loitering humans, Ash wasn’t worried about them being seen. Otherworldly creatures had a natural glamor to disguise them, and, paired with humans’ knack for explaining away or conveniently forgetting anything that didn’t fit the mold of their preconceived reality, most of the time there were no fears of them seeing something they shouldn’t. But it was still good to be careful.
The gargoyle snarled at them. “Time to come home, boys. You’re in big trouble, you are. ’Spect there’ll be a nice punishment waiting for you when you get back. Something real nasty, I bet. Could be years before they get tired of torturing you.”
“Wow, that’s doing a great job of convincing us to go back,” Meph said.
“You especially,” the gargoyle sneered at him. “We both know who still wants his favorite toy back. It’ll be just like the good ol’ days.”
Raum stuck his face in the gargoyle’s and stared him down until the creature shrank back, ears flattening against its ugly skull.
“I can’t believe it came alone. Stupid thing.” Ash’s words were casual, but he’d tensed at the maniacal look that flashed in Meph’s red eyes. Despite his perpetual dopey grin, Meph was more than a little unstable, thanks in no small part to the shit he’d survived in Hell.
“It’s just a messenger,” Bel said coldly. “It’s a way of showing us how easy we are to find.”
“Damn it,” was Asmodeus’s response.
“What did you expect to happen when we escaped? That they’d just forget about us?”
Meph snorted, successfully banishing his dark side. For now. “Especially you two idiots.” He gestured to Bel and Ash. “Like they’re going to let their top guys go so easily.”
Ash rolled his eyes. He was hardly Hell’s “top guy.” After his curse, his reputation had taken a serious hit.
Bel yawned. “Can we just kill the thing so we can go home?”
The stupid gargoyle must have known it would be easily overpowered by them, but it had come anyway. That was the bullshit thing about being a demon—no say in their assignments even if they ended in death.
“Haven’t got a home yet.”
“Back to the hotel, then.”
Ash took two long strides, grabbed the gargoyle by the scruff of its ugly neck, and slit its throat with a claw. It bled out in a few seconds—gargoyles had very little blood—and then crumpled to the floor. But its body didn’t disintegrate, because it wasn’t dead. There were a few precise steps that had to be taken to achieve that.
Ash looked expectantly at Bel. “Finish it.”
Bel made a face. “Decapitate it first.”
“Do I look like I have a blade on me?”
“I don’t have one either.”
