He mumbled a response, but it didn’t sound like words.
“He’s shy,” Meph stated, still grinning. “After three thousand years of being invisible, he lost all his people skills.”
“Pretty sure he has better people skills than you, jackass,” Bel shot back. “Do you ever shut up?”
Meph sneered at Belial.
Jacqui smiled at Meph and quickly changed the subject. “I love your tattoos. I’m fascinated by the concept of using the body as a canvas. If I were a braver woman, I might have explored it myself.”
Meph blinked. “Uh... thanks.” It appeared that for the first time ever, he’d been shocked into silence.
“Can I ask you what inspired you to cover your whole body?”
Eva pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Mom—”
“Bel told me it’s an outlet for my self-destructive tendencies,” Meph said, having no filter on what was or wasn’t appropriate to say. “He said I channel my need to harm myself into getting tattoos instead of doing stupid shit that will one day get me killed.”
“That’s not quite how I said it,” Bel grumbled.
“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you said.”
“I think that’s beautiful,” Jacqui said. “We all carry a certain amount of darkness inside us. Art in any form is a safe way of expressing and releasing it. There’s no need to feel shame about it.”
Meph nodded. “It helps me. When my skin is full, I think I’ll peel it off and start over again.”
Jacqui’s mouth dropped open.
“Meph, shut the fuck up,” Raum hissed.
He glanced around. “What?”
There was an awkward silence.
Then, Jacqui clapped her hands. “Who’s hungry?”
Dan Gregory stood in the wreckage of his daughter’s apartment and surveyed with cold disinterest the demon writhing in pain within the sigil at his feet. He felt no sympathy, considering he’d had to sweep aside shards of glass and debris to clear space to draw the design. He’d picked up only three energetic trails here—his daughter, Asmodeus, and this fucking demon.
Mishetsumephtai, Hell’s notorious Hunter, thrashed wildly as Dan twisted the end of his sword in the creature’s back. The binding sigil prevented him from turning into mist, and without it, it would’ve been impossible for Dan to catch this powerful demon on his own. Even then, he’d gotten lucky. He’d set the trap, and it had been pure chance that Mishetsumephtai had walked into it.
“Where is she?” Dan growled, twisting the sword again.
The gray-skinned demon’s leathery wings were draped limply over him, his claws digging into the hardwood from the agony. It was no regular weapon that Dan had stabbed into his back. He was quite certain the Hunter would have barely blinked had it been. No, Dan was armed with the only type of weapon really capable of killing a demon.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t kill this one. Mishetsumephtai was on sanctioned duty from Hell, sent to locate four rogue demons. It was against the rules to destroy a demon on an authorized Earth mission, as long as that demon continued to follow the rules during its foray.
Asmodeus, Belial, Mephistopheles, and Raum, however, were fair game.
They were not sanctioned to be on Earth. They were not following the rules. And though it seemed Hell was trying to retrieve them without destroying them—at least for now—they knew very well what Heaven’s response would be were they to get their hands on the rogues.
Dan didn’t give a shit about the rules anymore, really. He had retired years ago when he’d met his wife and hadn’t planned on getting involved again.
That was until Eva had gotten dragged into this somehow.
He fought the urge to shout with frustration.Howhad she gotten involved? He’d done everything, taken every precaution, to keep her safe from this world, and yet she’d ended up with a Prince of Hell in her apartment. And their energies were commingled, particularly in the bedroom, which was enough to send Dan into a full-blown rage if he thought too hard about it.
“Where is she!” he shouted at Mishetsumephtai, digging the consecrated sword into his spine a little deeper.
“I’ll never tell you,” the crazy demon hissed, laughing between cries of pain as Empyrean light cascaded over his writhing form.
