For the Birds Page 14

  Beelzebub had been my saving grace, which seems entirely wrong to say about a demon. He didn’t pry into my trunk of secrets. He didn’t treat me like an invalid and try to protect me from the reality of my work, not that he hadn’t saved my ass a few times. The difference with him was that he would sit back and let me fight my own battles until I cried uncle, and then he’d lend a hand. Afterwards, we might discuss my technique, but he’d never suggest that I just go hole up somewhere safe until the big boys took care of the bad guys. I adored him for it.

  Beelzebub was also more in touch with society. He threw parties regularly and dressed to the nines in the latest European fashions. He was still somewhat entangled with the politics of Eternity, but he was far more causal and subtle about it than Maalik.

  The fact that they were both from hell didn’t even seem like a good comparison point. Bub loved the hells. He maintained homes in several of them. Maalik had an apartment in Jahannam that he had gladly given up when he moved to Limbo City. He was an angel of Allah, and he still considered Jannah, the Islamic heaven, his true home.

  Grim’s office was feeling crowded all of a sudden, and then Ammit joined us, breaking up the awkward silence with her cheerful smile, packed full of hope. I took a wild guess and figured that Grim had told her about the headdress sighting. I was relieved to see that she had traded in the sweat pants for a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck. Her braids were tidier, and she had them pulled back into a low ponytail. She had also reapplied her eye makeup in bold Egyptian fashion, complete with Eye of Horus teardrops and long, curling tails.

  Josie and Kevin gravitated over to her, distancing themselves from the fuming triangle I had become the focal point of. The tension in the room boiled until I thought I just might have something left for my stomach to give up.

  Grim gave us all a bored sigh and folded his hands over his desk. “This is how it is, kids. Maalik has a thorough knowledge of a large portion of the hells. Beelzebub has a thorough knowledge of another portion, and Ammit another portion still. You three reapers have a history of working well together and overcoming extraordinary odds as far as battling demons is concerned. Plus, Lana has special training in demon defense. I’m hoping she’s passed a bit of that on in some way or another to the lot of you.

  “I’m fairly confident that you all are trustworthy and dependable enough to track down Caim and retrieve the Helm of Hades, as well as Ammit’s headdress and the souls stolen from the factory last night. Finding Ms. Fang and bringing her home safely would be the cherry on top of this shit-filled Monday, but I’m not holding my breath. Any questions?”

  Maalik tensed at the mention of the demon training. None of us said a word.

  Grim sighed again, the only indication that he had some inkling of the discomfort he was subjecting us to. He raised an eyebrow and ran a hand down the front of his tie. “Well, I have a question,” he grumbled. “What’s the plan of action, Captain Harvey? Do you have some idea of how to get this search party off the ground?”

  It was the first time he had addressed me formally as a captain. It was also the first time he had sincerely welcomed my leadership. It took me a minute to find my voice.

  I stuffed my hand down in the pocket of my robe and pulled out one of Jenni’s scarfs that I’d fished out of her closet. “The hellhounds can track Jenni with this. Wherever she is, Caim is sure to be nearby.” I wanted to ask him to reconsider about Maalik. I was pretty sure we could pull the mission off without him, but I was too proud to spoil my small victory with Grim by protesting.

  Grim nodded. “Alright then. Next order of business. How are we going to keep your merry men under the radar?”

  Bub held up a finger. A little fly circled around his knuckle and perched itself along the edge of his fingernail. “I’ll send a few of my foot soldiers ahead to serve as lookout.”

  Maalik rolled his eyes. He lifted his hand nearest to me. Hellfire ignited into a startling ball of flames in his palm. I flinched at the closeness of it and wondered if he had done it intentionally.

  “Or I could just turn anyone who gets in our way to ash,” he said flatly.

  Let the pissing match begin.

  Grim considered their methods with a nod, purposely ignoring the conflict. He didn’t have time to play Dr. Phil today. Instead, he turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to hear some good news when you call me next.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  No one else felt brave enough to inject themselves into the conversation. Instead, they all followed me out of the office and past Ellen. She gave us a lopsided smile and slid a bag of coins across her desk. “Grim said you might be needing these today,” she said in a hushed voice. Her eyes roved over our grim party, pausing on the brooding men.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Ellen learned early on how to skim over the heavier issues at Reapers Inc. She was more inclined to ask about my sex life than about work. I was sure she had some notion of the importance of what we did, but she didn’t let it keep her up late at night.

  I took the coins, and we piled into two separate elevators, Maalik and Ammit taking one, and the rest of us taking another. I knew it was more than likely going to be the last comfortable moment I had all day, so I took the opportunity to pull Bub in for a long kiss, not caring that Kevin and Josie were in the tight space with us.

  Bub pulled away with a grin. “What was that for? Not that I’m complaining.”

  I smoothed my hands down the front of his shirt. “That was for being my hero last night, and because I probably won’t get the chance to do it again most of the day.”

  “Most of the day? How is your night looking?”

  “I’ll know after we find Jenni.”

  “If we find Jenni,” Josie said softly.

  I put a hand on her shoulder, and Kevin mirrored me on her other side. “We’ll get her back.”

  We took the travel booths down to the harbor and quickly boarded the ship. The nephilim guards didn’t give us a hard time, and most of the other ships were quiet, their owners having already left to begin harvesting for the day.

  The hounds were waiting for us on deck. The new crowd excited them. They could tell today was going to be different. For them, it was an adventure. For the rest of us, it was a great big nervous question mark.

  When the city faded through the fog and the open sea filled our line of sight, the reality of what we were doing finally sank in. The fit was about to hit the shan, and I was leading the way.

  Josie, Kevin, and I had all stripped away our work robes. They would only be in the way when the fighting began. Josie had brought her new crossbow. Kevin had inherited her longbow, though he’d also brought my old scythe, since I’d disposed of his in the chest of a rebel siren. He and Josie were both dressed in dark jeans and lightweight black tank-tops, inconspicuous and cool enough for the warmer climates we’d be making our way through soon.

  I was wearing a similar black tank top, but I’d chosen a pair of thin leather pants. They were an old pair that had survived a few other demon attacks. Well, they’d mostly survived. The bottom hems were a little rough where acidic demon blood had eaten through the leather, and a few claw marks had been stitched up above one knee. The strap of throwing stars Bub had given me during my training was fastened around my thigh, and I’d brought along a second hunting knife so that I could tuck one down in each boot, where I had also wedged a couple canisters of angelica mace. I’d also worn a pair of thick leather wrist guards that laced halfway up my forearms.

  My double-headed iron battle axe was polished and ready to go. I hadn’t found much use for it in my daily activities, which I could only be thankful for. Still, the thing was beautiful. I propped it up in a corner of the navigation room so it would be close by while I manned the helm.

  Josie and Kevin were making the rounds, double checking all the sails. I wasn’t sure where Bub and Maalik had disappeared off to, but it was a safe bet that they were avoiding each other. Am
mit stayed up on the quarterdeck with me.

  “Nice boat you got here.” It was the first thing she had said all morning. She was sitting on the railing with her legs dangling out over the ghostly waters.

  I walked over and folded my arms over the railing next to her. “Yeah. It’s taken care of us through some interesting events.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Horus’s niece Kabauet, the goddess of cold water, had cleaned up our ship last year after we were attacked by Caim’s demons. We’d been transporting one of the rejected throne candidates to Duat. It also happened to be the battle we lost Coreen in.

  I frowned at the memory. “How good are you in a fight?”

  Ammit tilted her head around to look at me. Her eyes flickered, the pupils narrowing to a more reptilian shape. “I can hold my own. Don’t worry about me, reaper.”

  I had to remind myself that Ammit had been around for the War of Eternity too. She might not have been as memorable as Kali, but she was still formidable. I just wanted to be sure that her fighting skills hadn’t gone stale during the sedentary millennium that had passed since then.

  Beelzebub and Maalik were survivors of the war too. I hadn’t paid much attention to the brief history lesson I’d received at the academy as a fresh reaper, and I was suddenly sorry for it. I wanted to know more about everyone’s roles. I wanted to know who I should want at my back if war broke out again. Maybe I could ask Jack to give me a proper history lesson in the study at Bub’s Tartarus manor. There had to be some good books on the war in his collection.

  Chapter 22

  “We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions

  of humanity – romantic love and gunpowder.”

  -Andre Maurois

  Saul’s coffee can paws were flopped over the deck railing. Little toenails poked out in between the black tuffs between the pads of his feet, but he was careful not to scratch up the woodwork. Strings of slobber webbed down from his jowls and his wet muzzle bobbed in the wind, sniffing the breeze along the coast of Jahannam.

  Coreen was curled up towards the back of the main deck, halfway sulking about Saul being the better tracker and halfway napping to be ready when we got to wherever we were going.

  Josie and Kevin had disappeared off to the captain’s cabin. Maybe the anxiety of the upcoming battle had excited them, and they wanted to wind down with a quickie. Maybe they just weren’t comfortable wandering around the deck with Beelzebub and Maalik shooting eye daggers at each other from opposite ends of the boat. It was no picnic for me either, but as the chosen leader of the group, I felt it was my responsibility to keep an eye on things and be ready when Saul picked up Jenni’s scent. Besides, if I couldn’t handle a little tension between the two men, I really had no business rushing into a demon hideout.

  Beelzebub and Ammit were getting along fine it seemed. They were both technically hell-born, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. Maalik resided in Jahannam, the Islamic hell, before joining the council, but he wasn’t really hell-born. He was an angel, and he was a servant of Allah. He had hated being stuck in Jahannam, and he’d been thrilled when he was first voted onto the council last year and was allowed to move to Limbo City. That afterglow was long gone now.

  I found Maalik hiding out in the crow’s nest, the basket lookout at the top of the main mast. It had probably taken him all of two seconds to fly up there, but it took me a bit longer climbing up the ratlines to join him. I was out of breath when I finally reached the top.

  “What do you want?” he asked evenly, still refusing to look at me. There wasn’t a thing to see in any direction, but he kept his eyes narrowed at the horizon anyway.

  “I wanted to apologize for you getting dragged into this. I had no idea Grim was going to ask you to join us.”

  “Why shouldn’t he have? He was right. I know the hell regions better than most, and I’m more than proficient in a battle.”

  “Of course you are. I know that. I just know that this is uncomfortable for you, and it is for me too.”

  “Uncomfortable,” he scoffed. “Yes, babysitting my former love and her new demonic consort is… uncomfortable.”

  I frowned at him. “Babysitting? I’m trying to be civil here. There’s no need to be hateful.”

  “Save it, Lana. I’m not here for your insincere apologies. We have a mission. I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible so that I can return to my council duties. I don’t have lackeys to pass my work off onto when I’m not around like you do.”

  I opened my mouth, but before I could deliver a witty retort, he cut me off with a harsh swish of wings as he dove out of the nest, gliding effortlessly down to the forecastle deck where Saul was grinning in the wind. I stood there gaping after him, wondering when he had become such an asshat. Lackeys? Really?

  “That went well.”

  I almost fell out of the nest when I heard Beelzebub behind me. His army of flies reassembled, and he reached out, grasping my elbow to steady me.

  “Just trying to keep the peace.” I took my arm back.

  “I know, love.” Bub gave me a tender smile. “He was an ungracious lout.”

  “Yeah.” I looked back below and spotted Coreen trotting off to where Maalik had landed. She wagged her tail and snuggled herself in next to him at the head of the ship. He scratched her behind the ear. Saul dropped down from the railing for a quick greeting pet too. Maalik had given me the hounds when they were only puppies, and he had been around them, off and on anyway, while we dated. It annoyed me that they were still fond of him.

  The ship slipped on past where Jahannam’s border met that of the Christian Hell and carried on along the rocky coast. We were far enough out that no one would be able to recognize the ship. I could just barely make out the gates of Hell and the Styx Stop where I had met up with Bub for my first day of demon defense training. The Styx River was a thin, gray line behind the café. Soon, the rocky ledges of Tartarus would swallow the coast. If Jenni’s trail led us there, we were going to have to use one of the tender boats to make it to shore. It seemed incredibly inconvenient that coin travel was so limited on the sea, but then I remembered that also meant demons couldn’t just appear on my ship. Can’t really complain about that.

  The wind was stronger from the crow’s nest. I trembled against it. Bub stepped in behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, warming my backside with his chest. “You want help down from here, pet?”

  I cringed. “I’m not really sure that I want to be covered in flies right now.”

  Bub almost looked hurt. “You’ll be in my arms the entire time. Not a single one will touch you.”

  “Okay.” It was hard to refuse. I was already feeling like a jerk for offending him.

  He took me in his arms, cradling my back with one and looping the other under my legs. A swarm of flies appeared and wrapped themselves around his legs, taking particular care to stay away from me. They were gentle, slowly lifting us from the lookout perch and descending down the length of the mast. We landed so softly on the deck that no one even noticed.

  The flies disappeared as Bub regained his footing. He set me down with a pinched brow. “I hadn’t realized that the flies bothered you so badly.”

  “They don’t. I’m just extra twitchy right now, that’s all,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. Grief, I couldn’t seem to say the right thing to anyone today.

  Bub nodded and gave me a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Is there a spare cabin around here that I might be able to catch a quick nap in? I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “You’re probably better off on one of the couches in the hold. The other cabins haven’t been touched since Josie and I bought the ship. That’s been close to two centuries ago.”

  Bub nodded. “The hold it is.”

  We took the stairs off the main deck next to the cargo access hatch. The hold on mine and Josie’s ship was originally the gun deck. The actual cargo hold was a deck below that. We hadn’t really had
much use for a gun deck, seeing as how we didn’t have a full-fledged crew to run it, and even if we had, there were only a few rare occurrences I could think of that an operational gun deck would have even been useful. The cargo hold had been full of miscellaneous rigging equipment and rats, so we’d closed it off and converted the gun deck into a hold for our harvests. It was easier to access too, so it just made good sense all the way around.

  A dozen rusted cannons sitting along the outer walls next to boarded up gun ports were the only signs as to what the space had once been used for. Everything else was intended to make the place cozy. Our mismatched sofa collection had grown quickly after we’d joined the Posy Unit. Josie, Kevin, and I had spent a couple evenings hitting thrift stores in Limbo City and various afterlives. Our daily harvest count had jumped from a few dozen to several hundred overnight, so the couches had been necessary. Souls are less inclined to cause problems if you keep them comfortable. In addition to the sofas, we had several picnic tables. Kevin had become somewhat of an amateur carpenter. It was his first real independent interest outside of his academy studies, so I was in full support of it, even if the benches were a little off kilter.

  There was a separate cabin off the main room, with several sets of shackles welded to steel plates set into each of the walls. We didn’t have to use the room often, but every now and then we would get ahold of a real mess of a soul and have to lock it up. The vast majority of our catches were easy to manage. We had several decks of cards and board games set out for them, along with a bookshelf containing a full set of religious texts for all the afterlives, in case they wanted to brush up on their scripture before getting quizzed at the gates we dropped them off at.

  Bub took in the room with a comical grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been down here before. It’s not quite what I expected.” He chose a long, floral print, corduroy couch and stretched out, kicking his feet up on one of the arm rests and folding his hands behind his head. His black shirt strained over his chest, and I could see the lines of his abs and pecs pressing through the thin material. I had the sudden urge to pounce on him, but I contained myself. He needed to be well-rested, and I needed to be on deck to keep an eye on things. The thought of Maalik walking in on us made for pretty powerful motivation to behave too.