Chapter 8

I'd been preparing myself for this moment for over a week, but now that I was here, standing in the demons' council chamber, I realized that nothing could have prepared me for this.

Seven demons sat on seven thrones—except they weren't really thrones at all. Some demons sat on the living, breathing bodies of their subjects; others used their supernatural slaves as ornamental flourishes.

But the worst part of it all was that these poor people didn't even look like they were being forced to do this. I could see it in their eyes. They looked at the demons with faith and devotion, like they were just happy to be in their presence. It made me feel really uncomfortable. People weren't furniture to be contorted, positioned, and sat upon.

The chamber was massive, the seven demons spread out into their own distinct little kingdoms.

"Leda Pandora, we know why you have come before us," said the demon at the center of the very long row.

His name was Alessandro, and he was Lord of the Dark Shifters and King Demon, leader of the council. Alessandro looked like he'd walked right off the front cover of a romance novel. His long golden locks cascaded over his shoulders, shining against the purple silk of his regal suit. The enormous crown on his head shone just as brightly as his magic-infused hair, and the proud tilt of his nose told me he felt secure in his power.

Alessandro's throne was made up of dozens of shifters. Their bodies had shifted together, merging into an ornate sculpture of bodies. The living throne sparkled and shone like gems and precious metals, like silks and rare materials. And the whole throne was covered in the many shifters' eyes and mouths.

You're staring,Nero said in my head.

I'm trying not to. But it's so wrong. They're treating these people like props and decorations.

They knew you were coming,he replied. So they put on a show to rattle you.

It's working.

Don't let them know it.

I won't,I promised, stepping forward. "We've come on a mission of peace," I declared loudly, now addressing the demons.

"We've heard these words before," said a demon in a see-through white dress shirt and a pair of bright orange leather pants.

I'd read through the Legion's descriptions of the seven ruling demons. This one was obviously Seth, the Demon of Healing and Fairies. He wore a ring on every finger, several in each ear, and one in his bellybutton, clearly visible beneath his barely-there shirt. His dark hair was shaved short to his scalp, hardly longer than the stubble on his face.

Seth's throne was made of people. Lots of naked people, in a pyramid of positions. It looked like one big Kama Sutra collection, several pages all merged into one big erotic exhibition.

"We accepted the gods' offer in good faith last time, and we got burned," said a female demon.

This one was Violet, the Demon of Nature. She looked like a little girl in her fancy yellow sundress with a big satin bow. Her hair was pale purple with glittery gold highlights, and her feet were bare.

Violet sat on a flowering tree. Elementals hung from the branches like ornaments. A sky elemental cast a gentle breeze on Violet, making her hair move just right, like a wind machine at a photoshoot. A second sky elemental controlled various rumbling lightning orbs, directing the lights around the demon to make her look perfect from every angle. Three earth elementals were conducting blossoms, birds, and butterflies in flight and song, like instruments in an orchestra. Two sea elements controlled a show of snowflakes and a cloud of floating water droplets. A fire elemental was burning incense, creating a perfume around Violet that was both light and heavy, both floral and musky.

"The Guardians are too big of a threat to ignore," I said. "Only united can we defeat them."

"Thus far, they've only attacked the gods," said Sonja, the raven-haired Demon of the Dark Force. Her green-blue eyes panned across her fellow demons. "Let the gods fight the Guardians. Whichever side survives their confrontation will be severely weakened." A calculating smile twisted her lips. "Then we'll take them out."

Some of Sonja's many other titles included the Mistress of Telekinesis, Queen of the Psychics, and the Dark Lady of War. She'd once held me prisoner for weeks. She'd tested me, tortured me, then tried to convert me to her side. She was divinely beautiful and evil incarnate. She was also my aunt.

Today Sonja was dressed exactly as I'd seen her last: in a black leather uniform accented with pieces of sparkling armor. Her armor jewelry matched perfectly with the diadem on her head. Her throne was a large leather lounge chair; her footrest was a dark angel on his hands and knees. That was Sonja's way of showing her soldiers, even her own dark angels, that they were all beneath her. I knew Sonja, and her throne summed her up perfectly. She abused anyone and everyone, including her allies, to get what she needed. Honestly, I wasn't sure the gods really wanted a deal with the demons if it meant Sonja was involved.

But it was my job to form an alliance with the demons. And despite my misgivings about such an arrangement, I was certain that if we didn't stand together, we would all die.

"The Guardians will destroy you," I told the demons, and Sonja hissed. "They will destroy the gods too. But if gods and demons unite, the Guardians won't stand a chance. You can all fight it out later, after we've dealt with the Guardians."

"The Guardians were able to kill the original Immortals," said Valerian, the Dark Lord of Witchcraft and Bella's grandfather. "They are a formidable threat, as you say."

Valerian's long hair was as black as midnight in the wilderness, his skin shimmered like pearls, and his eyes sparkled like amethysts. His throne was very robotic, very machine-like. Only the faint thumps of human heartbeats, nearly completely buried beneath all that armor and all those engines, told me there were people inside those mechanical suits.

"But what is your plan for defeating the Guardians?" demanded Ava, her bright blue eyes sparkling with cautious intelligence.

Ava, the Demon of Hell's Army and the Dark Lady of Sirens, was my other aunt. I'd only met her briefly once before, but she seemed less psychotic than Sonja. Even her throne looked normal. It wasn't made of people; it was made of some kind of shiny material. It didn't look quite like metal.

"Skeletons," Bella whispered to me, her eyes locked on Ava's throne. "It's made of skeletons."

I blinked, and then I saw it too. The shine on Ava's throne was a spell, a trick of the mind designed to make you not see all the bones that had been tied together to make a seat fit for a deity.

And the beautiful young men and women, glowing with ethereal light, who served Ava drinks and food… I blinked again and that illusion fell away too. They were dead too, reanimated and manipulated by Ava's Siren's Song. She'd painted her magic over the grotesque to make it appear beautiful.

But why?

Bella must have been wondering the same thing because she gasped, "I can't trust her."

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

But she only shook her head.

Bella has realized how duplicitous and manipulative Ava is,Harker spoke in my mind.

Aren't they all?I replied.

Yes,Nero said. They are.

But Ava helped Bella find some answers about her past,said Harker.

She must have known the demon was only serving her own interests,Nero said.

We'll discuss this later,I told them. My mind is not a conference room.

Since I was the only one of the three of us who wasn't telepathic, they had to each project their thoughts into my mind so I could hear them.

She's grown so serious and responsible,Harker commented to Nero.

I'm as surprised as you are,replied Nero.

You're both hilarious,I told them.

At least they hadn't looped Damiel into this conversation. Honestly, the former Master Interrogator gave me the heebie-jeebies, and that went double for the idea of having him in my head. But Damiel's character flaws were mitigated somewhat by the fact that he made the world's best pancakes.

"We are waiting, Leda Pandora," Ava said, her voice silky. "But we will not wait for long. How do you plan to defeat the Guardians?"

I smiled back at her. "You can't expect me to share all my secrets before you agree to the alliance. What if you tip off the enemy?"

Sonja laughed. "Spoken like Faris's daughter. Nothing like a dash of sweet-talk and a heap of paranoia to cover up a total lack of content."

"If my diplomacy offends you, I can substitute insults instead," I replied with a tight smile, and Angel hissed to emphasize my point.

Alessandro peered down at my kitten from his throne. "What is that?"

"It's a cat," I told him. "Don't tell me you don't have cats in hell."

"Our beasts behave," he replied in a chilly tone.

The reason there were even monsters on Earth at all was the demons and gods had lost control over their ‘well-behaved' beasts.

But I didn't say that. All I said was, "Your beasts behave some of the time."

They knew what I meant anyway.

"We'll tolerate no snark from you in these halls, child." Angry magic sizzled on Sonja's fingertips. "Nor from your cat."

"Would you strike down an emissary of peace?" I directed the question not to Sonja, but to all the demons. "I've heard such great and terrible things about this hall—and about the Seven who preside here." I glanced briefly at Sonja. "But the truth is you throw tantrums when people say things you don't like, and you're too afraid to make the one alliance that will save you. Perhaps, I should seek out allies elsewhere. I hear your lower nobility is full of demons with enough sense to realize you need this alliance—and with enough ambition to ascend the ranks should an opportunity present itself."

The demons' angry roars nearly buried Damiel's laughter.

"Leda, you've got nerve, that's for sure," he said.

I waited for the demons to stop raging, then I said, "Look, it's like this. The gods have betrayed you, and you've betrayed them."

"True," Violet agreed.

"But it's different this time," I told them. "Because this time, I'm the one making the deal. I don't break my word." I narrowed my eyes. "And I don't let anyone break theirs either."

"Impudent child." Alessandro scowled at my implicit threat.

Well, actually, I thought my threat was pretty damn explicit, but then again, deities and I often disagreed on things like subtlety, propriety, and the honest-to-goodness difference between right and wrong.

"We should send Faris's mouthpiece back to him. In pieces." Sonja's voice was a scathing hiss.

"If you think Faris is speaking through me, then you really don't know him at all," I laughed. "He'd never say the things I do, and he loathes me almost as much as you do."

Grace rose from her throne, marking the first time my mother had spoken since we'd arrived—and the first time I'd ever heard her speak to me at all. "Why did Faris make you the gods' emissary?" she asked me.

I looked up at her. The Demon of Faith, the Lady of Dark Vampires, stood close beside her sister Ava. The pale-haired twin demons were barely distinguishable from each other, and I looked a lot more like them than I'd realized—or was comfortable with. According to Lady Saphira's bodyguard Calix, my mother had spent the entirety of her pregnancy engaged in ancient rituals designed to saturate me in telepathic magic. She'd tried to make me into a weapon every bit as much as Faris had.

"I would think Faris's reasons for making me the gods' emissary were obvious," I said to Grace.

She watched me closely, and I couldn't help but wonder if she was right now trying to determine if she'd succeeded in turning me into a master of telepathy. I was wondering about that too. I'd been able to keep most people out of my mind long before I'd become an angel, but I wouldn't know how powerful I could be until I'd gained the magic of Ghost's Whisper.

"Faris believes we will listen to you," said Grace. "Because you are a child of both heaven and hell."

I shrugged. "I guess he figured I'd be more likely to succeed than any god."

"Perhaps you are." Grace sat on her throne with easy, arrogant elegance. "We do not trust the gods. They are duplicitous."

Grace's throne was functional but elegant. The black surface seemed to be made of dark metal, not stone or wood. It didn't looked particularly comfortable, more the seat of a soldier than of the demons' priestess. Several very beautiful vampires sat on cushioned chairs around her, drinking blood from crystal glasses, and they were obviously enjoying themselves. Honestly, the sight of it made me hungry. I was half-tempted to go over there and indulge in a sip too.

Or maybe a bit more than only half-tempted. I must have taken a step toward them because I felt Nero's hand on my back, a gentle reminder of the real reason we were here: to forge an alliance between gods and demons, not indulge our thirst for blood. Like vampires, we angels suffered from that hunger too. Usually, it wasn't so pronounced. There must have been something special about those vampires, something that brought out my hunger. I looked away from them before they brought out my fangs too.

This all felt wrong. I couldn't explain it. I could not sense any spell around Grace's entourage. Her throne, her followers—they all seemed to be just as they appeared. And yet Ava's deception had got me to thinking. Was Grace fooling me? Was she putting on a show for my benefit? Was she trying to win my trust and sympathy, making me relate to her by showing how different she was from the other demons?

"You can trust me," I told Grace, even as I pondered her duplicity. "I am not duplicitous. What you see is what you get."

"I don't doubt you believe that, Leda," she said. "But you are far more than you see."

It was neither a compliment nor an insult. It was a decree, handed down by the Demon of Faith.

"Actions speak louder than words. Or blood, for that matter, Grace," Sonja said. "She has chosen to serve the Legion. She stands with the gods. And she's bulldozed right through our plans countless times."

"Your plans to take over the world," I sniped.

"That is neither here nor there," Sonja said coolly.

"It's everywhere," I replied. "Don't you see? This immortal war is tearing the universe apart. And the Guardians are standing by, watching us kill one another, ready to jump in and fill the void left by our distrust and fear. We cannot allow that to happen. We must stand together."

Alessandro rose from his throne. "Good speech."

"I have more where that came from," I said.

Seth laughed behind his manicured hand. "Don't encourage her, Alessandro, or she'll never shut up."

"Be gone, Leda Pandora." Alessandro gave his hand a melodramatic wave.

Just like the gods' Seven, the demons' council was clearly populated by assholes and drama queens.

"What of my proposal?" I demanded, planting my hands on my hips—and my feet firmly to the ground.

"You'll be hearing from us," Alessandro said as the doors behind the demons opened.

Soldiers poured out of them, each and every one of them a full-blown deity in Hell's Army. And they were armed to the teeth. For a moment, I wondered if these soldiers were as normal as the gods I'd met in Heaven's Army.

That moment was short-lived.

Get moving!a voice in my mind warned me. I was pretty sure it was Grace.

Beasts joined the demon soldiers, and they ran at us, their weapons raised, their magic primed to attack.

"I guess we're going now," I said to my comrades.

Then we ran for our immortal lives—into the magic mirror, past the sleeping sphinx, around the hell turkeys, and through the hot-and-humid jungle. The demons were hot on our tails the whole time. And if not for the ward the gods had placed on the Earth to keep out all demons, I bet they would have followed us all the way back home.