For the Birds Read online

  Let me make this perfectly clear, since we’re talking about the devious structure of the political beast. The members of the council are not a stupid bunch, not in the least. They consist of nine very old, very powerful beings from the most esteemed faiths, ancient and current. But they do have a way of tiptoeing around the elephant in the room, all for the sake of keeping the peace or manipulating said elephant into joining their circus. There was a lot of circuses in town lately, but I’ve never been much of a juggler. The tightrope balancing act I was pulling off was top notch, however.

  One by one, the council members were finding ways to indebt me to them. After a demon rebel burned down my apartment last spring, Holly Spirit rented me a discounted condo at Holly House, the most Holy abode in Limbo City. Meng Po patched me up, more than once, after several close calls on the job, and off the job. I even dated one of the council members for a short while.

  Maalik, the keeper of hellfire, was the Islamic angel who guarded the gates of Jahannam, the Islamic hell. He eventually became painfully controlling. I imagine he thought he was being protective, since he was one of the few who knew the truth about me. Things didn’t end so well. And like a first rate harlot, I very quickly found myself in the bed of none other than the Lord of the Flies.

  Beelzebub was commissioned by Cindy Morningstar, another council member, to instruct me through a two week demon defense course. At the time, Grim had not yet replaced Coreen Bendura, his second-in-command. After he promoted me to head of the specialty team, many of the council members assumed he was grooming me for the vacant position. Instead, that promotion had gone to Jenni Fang, one of my new roommates. I was instead promoted to captain of the Posy Unit, courtesy of Horus. He pulled some strings within the council to get the placement proposal drawn up to be voted on.

  Grim was not pleased. I really think he had hoped I would disappear back into the bottom of the barrel. Originally, that had been my plan, but Horus threw a great big monkey wrench into it. Being captain of the Posy Unit would put me in contact with the most souls possible, thereby expediting the search for a new replacement soul.

  So here I was, with a fancy new job that I really didn’t deserve. I was giving it my all, and not just to save my ass from the wrath of Horus, but because everyone else was expecting me to fail. Nothing is so motivational as the desire to prove people wrong. I wasn’t a real go-getter my first three centuries, and that alone was enough to make most other reapers resent me for getting such a hefty promotion. Also though, I needed to convince Grim that I was serious about my new job. He was suspicious of Horus’s motives, so he was just waiting for an excuse to demote me, which is precisely why I showed up twenty minutes early for our weekly meetings and hadn’t let a single soul slip past my team.

  As a captain of a specialty unit, I also had a fancy pants office at Reapers Inc. It was meant to be a place of solace where I could go to sort out my paperwork and plan the next day’s harvest schedules. But mostly, I just sat in the stiff chair behind my empty desk, staring out the enormous picture window and at the blank walls. The other captains had tastefully decorated spaces, but I was still stunned by the whole concept of having an office at all. Plus, the idea of finding solace when Grim was just down the hall was preposterous. So I did most of my paperwork from home and days in advance.

  After a long ride up in the elevator, I checked in with Ellen, Grim’s secretary, and took a seat in one of the stiff waiting room chairs. My reports were perfectly arranged in my portfolio, but I looked over them again anyway. This sort of dedication would have served me well during my classes at the Reaper Academy. It would have also kept Josie off my ass. She was the only reason I passed my classes at all last semester. Hopefully, it would be another three hundred years before I needed to take another one.

  “Lana,” Grim grumbled, poking his head out of his office. “Come on in.”

  I stood and smoothed a hand down the front of my work robe before following him.

  Grim was ancient, but like the deities, he had aged well. There were a few lines around his eyes, but his hair was a glossy black and combed back into the standard seventies businessman helmet. His trademark gray suit was as identifiable as a reaper’s robe and scythe.

  “Take a seat.” Grim snatched the portfolio out of my hand and flipped through it, lazily glancing over my weekly reports, while I tried not to look too uncomfortable in one of his torturous office chairs. The leather squeaked beneath me.

  Grim glanced up and sighed heavily. Our meetings were tense lately. Not that they were ever friendly in the past. His demeanor was just a little icier since Horus went around him to have the council vote on my placement. They didn’t usually have any interest in the reaper hierarchy.

  “Did you know that Kate Evans filed an official complaint against you?” he said, tossing the portfolio on his desk.

  “No, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. She’s having trouble accepting my authority. It’s still early. I’m sure she’ll adjust eventually.”

  Grim frowned. “How are you adjusting?”

  “Just fine.” I tried to smile, but smiling in the face of Death is never an easy thing to do.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. Why? Is my work not up to par?”

  “It is, actually.” He relaxed back in his chair, but the frown was still there. “I’m surprised. I was sure you would be too busy consorting with Horus—”

  “I haven’t spoken to him in months.”

  “Or running all over Eternity with your latest hell-born consort.”

  “Maalik isn’t technically hell-born. He’s an angel—”

  “My point being,” Grim raised his voice, “I don’t know how you’re managing to keep up with the requirements of this position. I suppose Josie and Jenni are of use—”

  “They have their own careers to attend to. They were plenty helpful with my last round of classes at the academy, but I’ve managed to figure out this captain gig all on my own, thank you.”

  Grim sighed again and reached up to massage the back of his neck. So far, our little meeting circled more around my personal life than my work performance. With the effort I had been making, it was hard not to take offense.

  “Is it so hard to believe that I’ve turned over a new leaf?” I asked.

  Grim laughed and gave me a skeptical grin. “It might not be as hard to believe if you had actually accomplished your promotion without the unwarranted aid of a council member.”

  I nodded. “True, but I’m sure Horus and the other council members were just garnering my favor, assuming that I would be your new second-in-command. They haven’t been as attentive of me since you appointed Jenni Fang.”

  “Is that so?” He still didn’t look convinced.

  I cleared my throat and sat up straighter. “Is there some other reason you don’t want me in this position?”

  “You mean besides the fact that your five centuries younger than any other unit captain and not half as qualified or experienced?”

  “Is my performance lacking?”

  “No.” Grim’s frown creased so deeply that his jowls looked like they might slide right off his face. “Let’s try to keep it that way. You’re being entrusted with more souls than any other reaper. I don’t have time to deal with a clusterfuck if you screw this up. I might just be tempted to terminate you.”

  My teeth clenched so tight that I could hear them grind inside my skull. I took a careful breath and gave him a strained smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Grim flashed an insincere smile of his own and tossed my portfolio across his desk. “You do that.”

  I left Grim’s office in a grim mood, and almost didn’t notice Ellen Aries, Grim’s secretary, until she was practically on top of me.

  “Lana,” she squealed in a whispery voice. “You got a delivery during your meeting.” She gave me a schoolgirl grin and silently clasped her hands together. “From Hell.”

  She followed me back to my offic
e, bouncing excitedly. Everything about Ellen was bubbly. Since she was less active than most reapers, she had put on a few extra pounds over the years. Of course, that could have also had something to do the fact that she kept enough chocolate stashed in her desk to survive an apocalypse. Her style hadn’t changed much since the sixties, and with her full hips and breasts, she looked like a vintage pinup girl. Her dark curls coiled even tighter than my own, and they bounced around her ever-cheerful face. She looked a lot like I imagined I would have looked if I were more girly and twenty pounds heavier.

  The other unit captains seemed to glaze over Ellen. It was like they didn’t know what to think of her. She was a first generation reaper like my late mentor Saul Avelo and Grace Adaline, professor of the wandering souls course at the Reaper Academy. The difference was that Ellen was a terrible reaper. So Grim gave her the secretarial position. And while she couldn’t tout the esteemed reputation many reapers strove for, she was still quite ancient, as in over a thousand years old.

  This puzzled the younger reapers as to whether they should address her as a superior or an inferior. So most of them decided to avoid addressing her altogether. I, on the other hand, chose to address her as a peer. The new notion tickled her, and she quickly decided that we were girlfriends. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that just yet.

  We entered my pathetically undecorated office, and Ellen closed the door behind us. Setting atop my desk was a crystal vase overflowing with daisies in multiple shades of blue. A matt black box sat next to it, tied with a shiny red ribbon.

  “Open it! Open it!” Ellen bounced on her toes and nestled her hands under her chin.

  Her excitement was contagious. My hands trembled as I untied the ribbon. The corner of the box was embossed with the image of a serpent coiled around an apple. It was the logo of Lilith Enchanted, the most regal dress boutique in Hell. Butterflies took over my stomach. I gently shook the lid loose and peeled away several layers of red tissue paper.

  “Oh, my.” Ellen’s jaw dropped.

  I swallowed and lifted the dress out of the box. The material was slinky and sparkled, despite being dark navy in color. The top was strapless, and the skirt was asymmetrical, with a cutout slit that would run from my left knee to just below my right hip, exposing a layer of black tulle framed by a black lace hemline. There was a small tag dangling from the back zipper.

  Ellen reached for it. “Oh, my,” she said again.

  My eyes followed and I came back with an, “Oh, my,” of my own. Bub had expensive taste.

  I laid the dress back in the box and noticed a little black notecard tucked down in the daisies. It held Beelzebub’s delicate handwriting in silver ink, and simply read, “No panties allowed.” There was a little fly doodled in the corner.

  “Oh, my,” Ellen whispered once more, peeking over my shoulder.

  Chapter 3

  “Hear no evil, speak no evil-

  and you’ll never be invited to a party.”

  -Oscar Wilde

  I didn’t care for Beelzebub’s flat in Pandemonium. I didn’t care for the perpetually nigrescent skyline, or the sulfuric smog that managed to billow all the way to the rooftop of the sixty story skyscraper. More than anything though, I didn’t care for the hoity-toity people Beelzebub surround himself with and called his friends. The flat was full of them tonight.

  There were six dozen demons in sparkling evening attire lounging around the sitting room. Despite the low lighting, everyone twinkled. Most of the women were in dainty little cocktail dresses, heavy on the glitter and sequins. Plunging necklines and thigh-high slits were all the rage, in addition to suicide stilettoes and over-polished pouts. With the dress Bub had bought for me, I wasn’t too far off from blending right in. I think maybe that’s what he had been going for, except I wasn’t nearly cutthroat enough to complete the ruse.

  I sipped at a glass of champagne from a quiet spot near the open balcony doors and watched a pair of harlots in matching red minidresses fawn over Bub while he mixed himself another drink. He smiled politely at them and nodded at whatever they were saying. It really didn’t matter how he smiled.

  Everything about him whispered sex, from his messy black faux-hawk down to the tastefully snug cut of his pinstripe suit. It had taken some effort, but I’d learned to manage my jealousy for the most part. I knew I was the only one who would be sharing his bed tonight, and that alone gave me the courage to peel my eyes away and glance over the rest of the room.

  I knew less than a quarter of the guests, and the only one who had said more than two words to me was Amy, Gabriel’s girlfriend. Dating an angel, and an archangel at that, did not do much for her reputation in Hell. Half the crowd was snubbing her, and the other half were feigning interest in the hopes of catching a juicy tidbit of gossip that they might be able to skew to their advantage later on. I had learned to keep my lips sealed when it came to these charade-infested events. That was probably another reason why no one was speaking to me. Amy was an acrobat when it came to tiptoeing the line between sharing too little to be considered interesting, and sharing enough to compromise herself.

  Bub slid up beside me and tilted his head down to lay a soft kiss on my neck, tickling my ear with his goatee. “I can’t wait to tear that dress off of you later tonight, love,” he whispered against my skin with his light English accent.

  I stifled a shudder and grinned. “Are you sure about that? I saw the price tag. A bit much for such a tiny thing, don’t you think?”

  “It’s brimsilk, some new manipulation of brimstone, mixed with zinc and copper particles. That’s what makes it appear to glow.”

  “Fancy.”

  The party chatter softened, and I stole a glance across the room, just in time to catch a slew of sour looks. Bub’s reputation wasn’t faring so well lately either. He wasn’t receiving as much flak as Amy, but then again, he instilled more fear in their kind than she did. Plus, I wasn’t an angel. Still, there were plenty brave enough to shoot a dirty look while they enjoyed Bub’s high dollar champagne and caviar.

  “I think a set of horns and a spiked tail would have endeared me a little more to your guests than the dress,” I said.

  Bub glanced over his shoulder. “Hmmm. Maybe. Shall we step out on the balcony for a bit of fresh air?”

  “Fresh?” I rolled my eyes but let him lead me away from the brooding crowd.

  Bub’s flat was on the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in Hell’s capital. While the view was spectacular, it had lost its appeal for me in a very short amount of time. My nose crinkled at the smell of sulfur emanating from the bowels of the city below. The roar of tortured souls was muted to a dull hum this high up. It sounded more like the gentle whistling of wind, although there was none to speak of. Luckily, the heat wasn’t quite as unbearable on the sixtieth floor either. I still preferred the volcanic countryside where Amy’s Inferno Chateau was located, when it came to Hell. Bub’s country estate in Tartarus, the Greek hell, was also nice.

  I leaned over the balcony and gazed down through the smog, trying to make out the Cocytus, the river of wailing, that curled around the city.

  “I’m sorry you’re not enjoying yourself.” Bub folded his arms over the iron railing next to me. “These little socials are necessary though.”

  “Really?” I laughed.

  “Really. I mean, I suppose I could employ a few dozen spies, spend countless hours in meetings with them, and then still have to worry about the quality of their work and their loyalties, but I’d much rather spend a quarter of that on champagne and party favors and form my own analyses.”

  “And if the guest in question doesn’t show up?”

  “Well, even that can be analyzed.” He grinned.

  “Aren’t you a clever devil?”

  “Oh, you have no idea.” His hand found the back of my waist and trailed down lower. “I see you obeyed my little love note.”

  “No, I just didn’t want to risk panty line. This fabric is so thin.�
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  “Of course.” He grinned and moved his hand up to the back of my neck, running his fingers through my curls before pulling me in and pressing our mouths together in a surprise kiss. It left me breathless and aching for him.

  When he broke for air, he nuzzled his nose playfully against mine. “Why don’t you wait for me upstairs? I won’t be much longer,” he whispered huskily.

  “Hmmm, okay.” I stepped back from him and downed the last of my champagne before handing him the glass. “Go make nice with the fiends, and then come make nice with me.”

  Back inside, I stopped to say goodbye to Amy, and then again to thank Jack, Bub’s butler, for all his hard work. I liked Jack. He had helped Bub train me in the art of demon defense. Jack gave me wink and bid me goodnight. I didn’t even bother to make eye contact with anyone else as I made my way to the circular staircase leading up to Bub’s lofty master suite.

  Bub’s Pandemonium bedroom gave me the chills. It was a far cry from the setup at his country home. The walls were deep red, and the massive, circular bed was covered in black satin sheets. The floor to ceiling windows that made up two entire walls were left bare and open to the fading night sky. Even knowing that it was one-way glass, I still hesitated before undressing and crawling beneath the covers.

  Incense burned from a metal orb hanging in one corner above a stone pot that was home to an oversized black orchid. The petals were glossy and turned a deep red when they met in the center. In the opposite corner where the windowed walls met there was an eight foot white marble statue of Eve, depicting the scene just after she ate from the tree of knowledge. Red and pink veins ran through the marble apple in her hand and through the juices dripping from her mouth and chin. Her pupilless eyes glowed a haunting, crystalline blue. She was eerie and seductive, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many women she had watched disrobe for Bub in this very room.