“My bad,” Acheron said with a wince, offering Cahuani one of the drinks in his hands. Cahuani took it, catching a whiff of bourbon as he brought it swiftly to his lips. “I’m still working on my inside voice. You don’t gotta be though. Good, I mean. I know I’m not.”

  Acheron chuckled and sipped his drink while tugging at the collar of his shirt. It was terribly obvious that he still wasn’t comfortable in his human vessel, but his composure was steady, and Cahuani could admit he was impressed.

  He had seen demons struggle in their new vessels the way he did in his own human skin, sensitive as he was to the many sights and sounds of a world that had not been made with him in mind. It was why he cracked his knuckles while counting in his native tongue of Nahuatl, why he kept a pair of earbuds—though he preferred the chunky headphones that covered his entire ear, it was best to be discreet in places like this—close at hand. They offered him control that his magic could not.

  “I can’t tell, which is more than good enough at this point,” Cahuani replied.

  “Well, I can tell that you’re not, so what’s up?”

  “You can literally hear emotions. Of course you can tell.”

  “Oh, this has nothing to do with my skills and everything to do with the amount of tension in your jaw. That shit hurts. Ask me how I know.”

  Cahuani chuckled into his glass. “Spoken like a demon that recently learned that the hard way.”

  “Exactly, so . . .”

  Acheron said nothing more, patiently waiting for Cahuani to give him something. Of course, Cahuani didn’t know what he had to offer, especially when they hardly knew each other.

  Was it tough seeing his son? Of course. Was it tougher seeing him as the enemy? Absolutely. However, those were simply facts that he had to factor into his plans for the duration of this auction, the same as every other variable he was up against. They had to be.

  When Cahuani failed to reply, Acheron continued. “You know, this is the farthest I’ve ever been away from home.”

  “From Hell?” Cahuani asked, his brows knitting together. He didn’t think the distance changed between there and any place on Earth.

  Acheron laughed. “Naw, my—my soul mate.”

  “The Orfani woman.” The words passed Cahuani’s lips before he could bite down on them. He remembered the story that Xaphan told him about why Acheron had come to work topside.

  But Acheron only laughed again. “Yeah, Penelope,” he confirmed. “She—I mean, since we met, I’ve either worked in Hell or in Sin City, and I’d get to go home to her right after work, no matter where I was assigned. I guess it would be more accurate to say this is the longest I’ve been away from her . . .”

  Acheron’s eyes went somewhere else as he trailed off, and his nails tapped the side of his glass. Cahuani softened at the sight. Yeah, they were more alike than he’d realized. At the very least, their humanness was.

  “The rules of any truce on neutral ground always have to be pretty strict,” Cahuani offered, trying to refocus Acheron’s attention. “—Even if the level of enforcement tends to fluctuate.”

  “Can you list our rules for me again?” Acheron asked quickly, seemingly not because he didn’t know them but because he recognized that they both needed the distraction.

  “No member of the governing bodies, the Puri and the Dominion’s archangels, is allowed to step foot on the premises designated neutral for the duration of the treaty,” Cahuani recited in his most comforting cadence. “They are not allowed to communicate with any representative of either faction on neutral territory directly, whether telepathically or otherwise. No representative is allowed to leave the designated premises for the duration of the truce, in this case three days. No acts of aggression or violence are permitted between the representatives in attendance, and no magic is to be performed in view of any Orfani, mortals with no magical or spiritual connections. No Orfani is to be injured or harmed in any way by either faction. Any such acts are to be treated as an act of war.”

  Acheron’s eyes at last met Cahuani’s again. “And that’s usually enough?”

  “It has been. Back before the Puri had so much power, the angels may have been a bit less . . . civil, but they know better now.”

  At least he thought they did, but sending Anthony here was certainly a choice.

  He could see in Acheron’s eyes that he was having the same thought, so when the demon asked his next question, Cahuani wasn’t entirely surprised.

  “What happened to him? I mean, why did he join the Dominion?”

  Cahuani leaned against the railing, suppressing the desire to search the room for his son and instead looking down at his boots.

  “He thought his mother and I were weak for working beneath the Puri despite our power. A few years before the betrayal, my wife Aliyah and I were offered positions on the Council of the Imbued.” At Acheron’s confused look, Cahuani smiled. “That is the head council of all magical practitioners. Every denomination of practitioners has its own council, and usually we would have had to serve on the Council of the Smoking Mirror, our faction’s personal council, before being offered positions, but they wanted us.”

  “But you were already working for the Puri, right?”

  “Yes, and I imagine that had a lot to do with the accelerated offer. However, we weren’t interested.”

  “Why not?”

  Cahuani winced. “The Council is a neutral party, and I’d been working with the Puri and against the Dominion long enough to know that remaining neutral was not an option. Aliyah agreed.”

  “And that made your boy angry?”

  “Anthony wanted us to take the positions because he believed we would be able to use them against the Council itself, to steer them away from their neutral position and into an offensive one.”

  “And you were against that.”

  “Honestly? I knew it was what I would’ve done if I’d taken the position. I would’ve tried to show them neutrality wasn’t actually an option, and I would’ve pushed them to side with the Puri.”

  “And your wife?”

  Cahuani smirked now. “She was against it. She wanted them to see the error of their ways, but she knew we would be villainized by our own people if we forced it, and I realized she was right. We could keep educating willing members, but they had to come to the conclusion on their own. But Anthony thought us cowards for denying ourselves that opportunity, and after that, that’s all he cared about—power. How to get it, how to take it, how to rob anyone else of it. And I tried to sway him, to talk him down. I tried everything I could. I never thought he’d outright betray us. I certainly never thought he’d side with the angels of all beings, but . . .”

  “But he’s his own person, and there was nothing you could’ve done.”

  In his heart, Cahuani knew that. He knew that just like the Council of the Imbued had to make its own decisions, Anthony had to as well. That fact didn’t make any of this any easier though. It didn’t make the reality hurt any less.

  He took another deep drink from his glass and turned back to the room below. At once, he felt a gaze on him, and he scanned the room until he met Tlalli’s eyes. The moment he did, she quickly averted her gaze.

  She was quite the actress. He would give her that.

  Yet the longer he looked at her, the more curious he found himself. What could she possibly expect of him? What plan had she and Anthony laid out in their minds? How could either of them believe he would play into it?

  Just then, as he watched Tlalli’s golden head make a beeline for the exit after another exchange with Anthony, he decided he wanted to know. He trusted his instincts, and his instincts were telling him this was worth investigating. After all, he had all the faith in his own team’s plan. There was nothing to worry about.

  “I’ll catch up with y’all,” he told Acheron.

  Ignoring the fresh confusion on the demon’s face, Cahuani handed Acheron his glass and hurried down the stairs and out of the hall, giving chase.

  5

  ELIAS

  Elias truly wished that the champagne, endless as it was, could do more for him. At least as much as it seemed to do for the mortals around him. But no, he was still far too sober for the scene Anthony was currently making in the center of the gala.

  How funny—they were meant to deflect attention from themselves, and here was Anthony, favored pet of the Dominion’s archangels, gathering as much of it as possible. And although Elias consistently reminded himself that Anthony was, in fact, not one of them, it hardly helped. He couldn’t say that he had ever seen a witch act up like this either. Tlalli was both, and despite the angel wings, she still had some common fucking sense.

  He could not say the same for her peers back in the Garden. In reality, Anthony fit in with them far better than Tlalli and Elias ever had. Michael was orchestrating a chaos that was building to impossible heights, and the angels in his employ were eager to hit that final note, whatever it may be. It wasn’t the war either. Elias knew that for certain. He had seen many wars, on Earth and elsewhere, and the greatest struggle wasn’t in the blood and bullets. It was in what came after. In the rebuilding, the recovery.

  Elias wasn’t sure Heaven ever actually recovered from the last battle it witnessed. It never recovered from the Fall.

  Stop it. He had been doing this a lot lately—questioning everything he thought he knew about both his own faction and each of their sworn enemies. Things had stopped adding up and making sense a long time ago, but Elias wasn’t one to stir the pot or kick up dust. He was just trying to get through the day.

  But get through to what? He didn’t know. Eternity had looked exactly the same for ages, and there was nothing to look forward to. The younger angels thought the war would bring great reward. Elias knew better. Because what had been hidden from them—the lies, the deceit, the hypocrisy, the revisionism—could not be hidden from him. He had been there at the beginning of the world and through every stage of its history, and he would be there at the end.

  “What the fuck did you say to him, Tlalli!” Anthony barked again, drawing another round of disapproving and disdainful looks.

  Truth be told, Elias liked mess, although he never showed it. He had perfected the art of casual disinterest. Yet he wanted to hear all about whatever Tlalli had talked to Anthony’s dad about. That curiosity was only heightened when Elias saw the infamous Cahuani Reyes himself, looking like every sin Elias had ever been warned against. And every temptation he had ever been told to fight.

  Therefore, he was invested in whatever story Tlalli had to tell. However, he doubted Anthony’s tantrum was going to get them any legitimate answers, so Elias would have to enforce his babysitter role.

  “Anthony, maybe we can use our inside voices for right now, huh?” Elias said, allowing his voice to take on the slightest lilt of patronization. “People are starting to look at us funny.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what these people are looking at!” he snapped back. “I want a fuckin’ answer!”

  “And I do not care,” Tlalli said slowly with both her mouth and her hands, her fingers appearing to tap each word in midair as she said it. “I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to you, but I literally do not have to explain shit to you, Anthony. You are nothing to me but a coworker.”

  “And this is work!” he bit back so hard that Elias was now actively considering an exit. “If you’re risking our fucking plans talking to the enemy, I gotta know about it!”

  “And you think if she were, she would tell you that?” It came out of Elias’s mouth before he could stop it, and Anthony was immediately huffing and puffing. Ugh, Elias swore mortals were a full-time job in and of themselves.

  Well, Anthony certainly was. Elias was beginning to feel real guilty for expecting Tlalli to put up with him when even Elias himself, known in Eden for his patience, was at his wits’ end with him on day one.

  Every other trip before this where he’d been forced to babysit Anthony was starting to take up more space in his brain than he cared to admit. None of this was fucking sustainable.

  Before Anthony could explode again, however, Tlalli stormed out of the hall, leaving the two of them there to field the glances they were still getting. Elias was certain the security guards near the door were going to come over at some point, and he wasn’t really all that interested in being subjected to that conversation.

  “Go find her,” Anthony snapped at him.

  Elias had known anger. Of course he had. It was a byproduct of existence, as a mortal or otherwise. But it had never come so swiftly. Apparently, Anthony had tested infamous patience long enough because he was thoroughly overwhelmed.

  “Um, let me remind your ass that I do not work for you, Anthony,” he said coldly, stepping closer to the man and eclipsing him once he swelled to his full size.

  He was certain Anthony could see his divine form bristling just beneath his flimsy vessel, the outline of it blooming from his back like a dark shadow. Elias had no qualms about providing the reminder: Anthony was beneath him. Anthony would always be beneath him, and no amount of kissing Michael’s ass was gonna change that. Anthony was beneath Tlalli too. It was time he accepted that.

  “You don’t get to demand anything of me. You don’t get to expect me to clean up after you.”

  Anthony chuckled. “You know damn well you’re not the front man here, Elias. This is my job. I call the shots.”

  “Not to me.” Elias wouldn’t back down, no matter how large Anthony tried to make himself seem. “And whatever this dramatic shit is needs to wait—No, matter of fact, it needs to die. ASAP, and I’m so serious. Leave that girl alone, or I’ll call both of your daddies, the one Upstairs and the one in this house, and tell them you’re being a fucking child.”

  Anthony’s face screwed up in petulant rage, but Elias only straightened up further, letting his power bleed lightly from his pores. After a moment, Anthony grunted and stalked off toward the door as well, no doubt to find Tlalli. Elias trusted that if she didn’t want to be found, though, Anthony wouldn’t have much luck.

  Though Elias knew he loathed Anthony, he never really knew how to feel about Tlalli. Or at least, he never inspected those feelings. Sometimes, he felt sorry for her. Sometimes, he wished he knew how to be an actual friend to her. And sometimes, he wished he knew how to be something more.

  But none of that mattered, because none of that was possible. They were coworkers trapped in an endless cycle of exploitative servitude, and he could offer her nothing beyond what she already had. Besides, they worked well together, likely because of how detached they were from everything and everyone else. It would be foolish to try and fuck up the flow. The work was all that mattered. The work was all that could.

  Scrubbing a hand over his face, Elias headed for the bar at the other end of the room in search of something stronger than champagne. It wasn’t that he was completely immune to the alcohol. This was a human vessel, and he felt everything there was for it to feel. However, it took more to affect him, a lot more, and that was the issue at the moment.

  A few minutes later, he sat glaring at a glass of straight tequila in front of him. The bartender had given him periodic glances of concern as he filled it, but Elias instructed him to keep pouring until he was told to stop.

  “Try some of this,” a voice said from the other side of him.

  Elias looked up to see a familiar but not entirely welcome face. Though if he were being honest, this face was far more welcome than Anthony’s right now. Or ever.

  Xaphan slid an ornate silver flask across the bar to him before moving closer. Elias smirked.

  “I imagine it’s filled with Gluttony’s bourbon,” Elias quipped.

  “And it will never run dry,” Xaphan said with a nod.

  Elias had met Xaphan on several occasions, in situations such as this, where interests overlapped but courtesy was still maintained. Xaphan had always been one of the more pleasant rivals to be around, but Elias still held his guard up at all times. One could never be too careful, and the demons were always scheming. Kind of like the angels always were.

  Although the demons did seem to have given up trying to persuade him to join them. He almost regretted that development.

  Elias picked up the flask and took a large swig.

  “There’s no reason we can’t be civil with one another,” Xaphan said when Elias handed it back.

  “I suppose not. Especially when you’re confident in your work.”

  Elias didn’t truly believe Anthony’s claim that Tlalli was working with the demons, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he didn’t much care. All this, every instance of tension between angels and demons, felt so . . . forced. The angels wanted a rivalry. Otherwise, they would have destroyed the archdemons a long time ago, torn them out from the root. Instead, they’d sent them away to a place where they could thrive. And grow stronger.

  Hell was a monster of Heaven’s own making, and regardless of the cost, the Dominion would never admit that. Like a mortal comic hero and their favorite archnemesis, they needed each other. Or at least, the angels needed the demons.

  Xaphan chuckled but he said nothing, merely glancing toward the entrance. When Elias looked at him, really looked at him, he thought he could make out the outline of his true form, equipped with massive corkscrew antlers and stone-gray skin. If he couldn’t, he must have been imagining that Xaphan looked similar to his creator—Lucifer, Prince of Pride, Head of the Puri. Or simply just “Pride” in most places. Someone Elias knew very well.

  In fact, he knew every member of the Puri. Much better than anyone could—or would—ever know. And much longer too. He was there before they fell.

  Elias himself wouldn’t call it a “fall,” but that was neither here nor there. Those lies had been born, bred, and built into an entire belief system by now. And there was no use fucking with a system he couldn’t beat.

 

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