Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) (2 page)

Something soft brushed against my fingers, and I paused to watch a feather drift to the dirty pavement. An angel feather. Instinctively, I ducked and spun around, partially avoiding the blow that caught the edge of my head and numbed my shoulder. I pushed away from the wall, weighing the wisdom of having a solid structure at my back versus the increased maneuverability in the middle of the alley. Whoever had assaulted had missed his opportunity. There had been once chance to take me by surprise, and he’d failed. I’d fight him as a human, because I enjoyed that sort of thing, but regardless of how good he was, few humans could prevail against a demon.

Shaking my head to clear it, I looked around. Three men surrounded me. The drug dealer from before hefted a bat, presumably the one that had nearly splattered my brains on the blacktop. To my left was another human, built like a club bouncer with a shaved head, a blingy ring glowing oddly on his right hand. Behind me stood another, thin and wiry with a scar under one eye. I pivoted, trying to keep them all within sight as my adrenaline spiked. I’d wanted a fight, but three would be tough without using any demonic powers.

The dealer swung the bat in an arc toward my midsection, and I jumped, crashing an elbow backwards and up into flesh. Cartilage crunched, but the wiry guy behind me paid no heed to his injury, grabbing me and slamming a fist into my lower back and kidneys. I gasped and bent in half, giving the drug dealer a perfect opportunity to knee me in the face.

Blood spurted from my nose, and the ground before me swam as I tried to jerk free and avoid the fists raining down on my head from the drug dealer. Shit. I wasn’t doing a great job defending myself against these two; who knows how bad things would get when Mr. Clean decided to join in. I’d better get with the program fast or I was going to be unconscious and relieved of my cash, which would be a rather embarrassing situation for a demon, even a lowly imp.

I jumped and lifted my legs, maximizing my downward momentum with the dead weight of my body. The wiry guy grunted and his hands slipped, unable to hold a hundred and twenty pound woman under the influence of gravity. I crashed to the pavement and rolled, avoiding the kicks that came my way. Where the fuck was Mr. Clean? And what the hell was an angel feather doing here?

“Nyl gebian eawfaest drohtrun.”

I felt the net constrict me as I froze.
Elven
magic. Here, in a back alley in Frederick Maryland? Mr. Clean was a
sorcerer?
Actually, he had to be a mage, and a rather low–level one at that, I thought as I probed the rough edges of the net that blinded me and kept me from using any of my demon energy.

“I think she broke one of my teeth,” one lisped. The wiry guy, probably. I’d hit him with my elbow rather forcefully.

I kept probing the net. This guy was a hack. There had to be a hole somewhere. I could have just transformed my barrette into its more lethal form and blown the net apart with my Shotgun of the Iblis, but I was wary about discharging a firearm downtown, especially since I wasn’t really sure what sort of magical bullets it was shooting or the effect they could have on neighboring buildings or passersby. Plus, I had enough reports to complete without adding to them by accidently killing random pedestrians.

“It took you long enough,” another complained.

“You were supposed to be able to accomplish this yourself,” a heavily accented voice replied.

The mage. Why in the world was a mage teaming up with two petty criminals? Why was he in a back alley, robbing a demon and risking the chance he’d get his ass cooked? Humans wouldn’t recognize the danger, but he should have. But none of those questions mattered right now because I’d found what I was looking for— a hole in the net. Without a moment’s thought, I grabbed the edges of the flaw and pulled, widening the hole and providing a window through which I could see and fight. The mage gasped, realizing what was happening just as I shot a burst of energy through the hole and into the legs within my sight.

The drug dealer screamed and collapsed as the lower part of his right leg exploded in a flash of red. The wiry guy ducked behind a garbage bin, and the mage raised his hands and began to chant. He was too late. I’d freed myself from his net and was on him, breaking his concentration and smashing his back against the doorway of a brick building flanking one side of the alley.

“You fucker. You’re gonna wish you’d stayed in Hel,” I snarled as I began to snake my energy into his body in preparation to Own him. “Eternity is a long time to be a demon’s plaything.”

I knew the drug dealer was bleeding–out in the alley behind me. I knew the wiry guy wouldn’t risk his own neck to interfere, having watched his buddy’s leg burst into chunks. It was just me and this mage, alone, in a shadowed alley.
And an angel feather,
something in the back of my mind prompted.

“No, no, no.” I felt a hand on my shoulder and slippery, silicone whiteness began to cover my store of energy. “Bad little imp. We need this mage alive and in one piece.”

An angel. And not my angel either. I’d become very familiar with how angels restrained us from using our energy, and I managed to hit his hand with a substantial amount before the rest snapped back into the slippery shell.

He yanked his hand away, momentarily breaking contact. He’d been unprepared for my attack, and I’d injured him beyond the flesh, down to his spirit self. I took advantage of the slip and made to bolt, but he reacted quickly, slapping another hand against my neck and restraining me completely this time.

“Feisty, huh? Well, you won’t be able to do that again.” Eyes narrowed in pain as he glared down at me. Yeah, I’d hurt him pretty good. Fucker.

“You’ll come quietly with us, now,” the angel said, the firm press of compulsion in his voice. I’d been shrugging off a far greater power for almost a year now. His command had no impact on me, but I turned in a show of docile obedience, waiting for a moment of inattention to give me an opening to break free. If he wasn’t touching me, the restraint on my energy would break and I’d once again be able to attack and defend.

I didn’t recognize this angel. He was one of the blond androgynous types that always seemed to look the same to me. Behind and to his left, wiry guy emerged from the protection of his doorway, casting a quick glance at drug dealer, who surely had to have been dead by this point. Damn it all, one more fucking report I’d need to fill out. How the hell was I going to explain this one to those assholes on the Ruling Council?

“She killed Duke! Killed him.” Wiry guy walked toward the angel as he said this, gesturing at the body on the ground.

The angel shot him an irritated glance. “I had assumed the
three
of you could handle
one
demon. Especially this one—a paltry imp.”

I wondered for a moment if he recognized me, knew that I wasn’t just a paltry imp but the Iblis, and a demon bound by a powerful angel. How could one of Gregory’s enforcers not have gotten the memo that I was off limits? Either he didn’t know who I was, or he was some kind of vigilante, taking the law into his own hands. I wasn’t exactly popular among the angelic host, even with my supposed title and status.

“But she was using demon stuff,” the human argued. “You told us they wouldn’t do that, that they’re afraid of getting caught.”

The mage had slipped out from behind me and was looking down at the dead human, his face pale. Wiry guy and the angel argued, their attention turning from me, supposedly restrained and compliant. I ran a hand down the door behind me, where the mage had been pressed. It was a fire door with no knob to grant access to the building from the outside. A human couldn’t get in, but I wasn’t a human.

The angel’s hand on my arm moved a fraction of an inch, and I was able to grab a small amount of my energy to channel into the door. While their voices grew heated, I dissolved the lock and snapped the hinges that would have prevented the door from opening inward.

One, two, three.
With a deafening crash, the door fell onto the lower part of a stairwell, clanging against the metal handholds. Startled, the angel lifted his hand slightly. It was exactly what I had hoped for. I seized control of my energy and stepped through the doorway, releasing a lightning bolt into the angel’s chest as I turned and ran up the stairs.

I could have stayed and fought him, but even if I’d won, I would have lost. I doubt the Ruling Council would look kindly on my killing an angel, regardless of whether it was self–defense or not. I could have summoned Gregory, used the protection of our bond to my advantage, but I didn’t want to constantly be hiding behind an angel’s skirts. I needed to be strong enough to do these things on my own, to become more than the lowly cockroach he believed me to be. Besides, there was always a chance he’d refuse to come, refuse to protect me. He hadn’t exactly jumped to my defense when the demon Haagenti had me in his crosshairs, and I
had
been crying wolf lately, summoning him for all sorts of trumped up emergencies.

I shook off thoughts of my very complicated relationship with the angel and dashed up the stairs, swinging my way around the landings to keep speed. I heard pounding footsteps behind me, felt the swish of elven nets as they whisked by. The mage was in pursuit, and probably the angel too since I doubted my lightning bolt had done more than piss him off. I wasn’t sure about wiry guy. He’d seemed rather disillusioned with his companions, and he may have taken the opportunity to break and run. Still, the two after me were more than enough to take me down.

Fourth floor and the footsteps clanging on the metal stairs behind me grew closer. Desperate, I burst through a door and into an office area, barreling into an employee and sending him flying against a copier. The door slammed against the wall once more, indicating that one or more of my pursuers were right on my heels. I didn’t dare look back, instead weaving in and out of the walled cubicles like a frantic rat in a maze, trying to lose them long enough to find somewhere to hide.

The office employees screamed, some racing for the exit while others hid under their modular desks. Their panic gave me an idea: I lit fire to the contents of various trashcans as I ran past. Before long, curls of smoke rose toward the ceiling, setting off fire alarms and the building sprinkler system. The office dissolved into chaos, people running for the stairwells in a mass exit. I inserted myself into one crowd and searched for the mage or the angel as I tried to stuff myself through the fire door with the fifty other people fighting to get out. They were nowhere to be seen, which meant they’d probably be waiting for me somewhere.

We moved into the stairwell, and I paused on the landing as the people beside me hurried down the stairs. Up or down? Were the mage and angel still searching for me in the office? Were they waiting on one of the landings? Or had they exited the building? I raced through the options and decided they’d most likely be waiting for me on the street, expecting me to escape with the humans. With an angel to wipe the minds of all witnesses, they wouldn’t think twice about grabbing me. Which left one way to go — up.

I climbed the additional three floors to the roof exit, trying to be as quiet on the metal stairs as I could. Even on tiptoes, each tread squawked with the weight of my foot. The roof door was even worse. I don’t think it had been used in years. I struggled, finally managing to open it wide enough to squeeze out. The hinges were so rusty that the door remained ajar as I made my way across the roof, looking for a hiding place.

Huge boxes containing the air conditioning units hummed, blowing out scorching air as I walked by. There was the one entrance, a square with the door I’d come out of. Other than that, the air conditioning units were the only things up here. The roof had a slightly spongy, rubbery feel, and in spite of the slight angle for drainage, small puddles of water pooled from this morning’s rain. The roof was edged in a low cement rim, about two feet high with holes attached to downspouts at the corners.

As I walked the perimeter, I kept my eye on the door, anxious that my pursuers might decide to do a thorough search of the building. I peered over the edge carefully, watching as the firemen cleared the building and began to usher the office workers back in.

“Nice view, isn’t it?”

I jumped and spun around, narrowly avoiding toppling off the roof. The angel leaned casually against one of the massive air conditioning units. I’d been watching the only entrance. How the hell did he get up here? Fly? If so, he was definitely breaking the rules — angels might occasionally manifest wings in front of humans but flying around was frowned on. If he didn’t care about those rules, he probably didn’t care about the one that said he shouldn’t kill the Iblis, a member of the Ruling Council.

“You might as well come with me.” He strolled across the roof in my direction. “You’re dead anyway, and what I have in mind would be far less painful than what you’ll go through when one of the enforcers catches up to you.”

He couldn’t know who I was or he would realize no enforcers would dare mess with me. But what was it he had in mind? I was curious, even though death, painful or not, wasn’t exactly on my agenda today.

“I’m surprised they’re not here now with all the energy you’ve been throwing around.” A faint tinge of blue surrounded him and snaked its way toward me, sent to sooth me into compliance.

“Maybe I’ll take my chances with the enforcers,” I told him as I thought furiously about how to escape. “Unless you’re offering to treat me to a latte or buy me a puppy, that is.”

He laughed. “Oh no, I plan to kill you, but you’ll be in comfort and probably live for a week or two. Death by the enforcers will be excruciating, especially if the big guy comes to get you.”

What the fuck did he plan to do with me that would take a week or two? If he were a demon, I’d expect a long, drawn–out torture, but angels didn’t do that sort of thing. Plus, he said I’d be comfortable. I shook my head to clear it. Regardless of whatever sicko plan he had for me, I needed to concentrate on escape.