That was Caleb, mopping his face with an oversized handkerchief he’d pulled out of all that leather. His hair wasn’t standing on end because he didn’t have any, but his usually rich skin tone had an ashen cast, and his eyes were a little more open than technically necessary. If it had been anyone else, I’d have said he was flirting with a panic attack, only war mages didn’t.
Of course, they didn’t usually stand in front of a full session of the demon high council, either.
Not that we were anymore. I’d lost the connection, whatever it was, to Mom shortly after the room erupted in chaos. And not the good kind. The weird-vibrationsthat-made-my-skin-feel-like-it-was-about-to-come-offthe-bone kind, like we were in a giant drum and somebody had suddenly decided to beat the hell out of it. And then there had been the noise, which probably hadn’t been metallic shrieks and high-pitched squeals and elephant-like trumpets, but my brain had given up trying to make sense of this crap and had just started tossing random junk in there.
So yeah.
Could have gone better.
On the other hand, the vibrate-y, noisy stuff had caused me to retch and flop over. And collapsing into nothing, not even a floor because I still couldn’t feel it properly, just nothing, was something I could live without ever experiencing again. But the good news was, it had gotten us kicked out on our collective asses.
The bad news was, Pritkin hadn’t come with us.
I stared at the big double doors leading back into hell’s inner sanctum and, despite everything, had a sudden urge to run back in there. And I guess more than an urge, because the next thing I knew, I was halfway to my feet and Caleb’s arm was holding me back. “Not a chance,” he grumbled.
“I just want to listen—”
“To what?” he demanded. “The shrieking?”
“They won’t let you in anyway,” Casanova reminded me. “They said no humans in the deliberations.”
“Pritkin’s in there—”
“He’s the accused. That’s different.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of!”
“Here.” Casanova handed over his precious bottle of hell juice.
I blinked at him.
“You’re white as a sheet,” he said gruffly.
I took the bottle, a little gingerly. And okay, if I’d needed confirmation that things were bad, I’d just gotten it. Casanova was being nice to me.
We were so fucked.
I drank. People, or things, or things pretending to be people came and went, paying no attention to the three bums sprawled in the corner. Caleb kept glancing around, but not like he was tensing to fight. More like the bland familiarity of the lobby was reassuring to him.
It wasn’t doing a lot for me.
Long minutes passed.
“Maybe it was intended as a negotiation tactic,” Caleb suddenly blurted out.
I glanced over at him. He looked a little less freaked-out, but no happier. I knew the feeling.
Having time to think was a bitch.
“What?”
“You know,” he told me. “All of that stuff about the gods . . ”
I passed over the bottle. “You think Mom was lying?”
Caleb took a swig, and made a face. “I’m not saying that. We’ve already had one god show up, and the punk-ass kids of another. But she could have been exaggerating. She was bargaining with them, and in a negotiation, you always ask for more than you hope to get. We want Pritkin, so your mother asks for—”
“An army?” Casanova said incredulously. “A demon army?”
Caleb scowled. “I thought you were the one who thought that was a good idea. You spent half the damned walk into Rosier’s capital bitching about—”
“The fact that we could use some help with the war we already have going,” Casanova said, snatching his bottle back. “Not being informed that there’s an army of ravenous gods preparing to lay waste to the hells, and planning to use earth as a staging ground!”
He belted back a couple shots’ worth, all at one go.
“Well, forgive me for hoping it’s not true,” Caleb retorted. “As someone who’ll have to fight it!”
Casanova leaned over me to stare at him. “And the rest of us won’t? You think the gods are going to wipe out the war mages and just leave everyone else—”
“The Corps is the obvious target, yes. We’re the only ones with enough magic to oppose them—”
“Oh, please!” Casanova said fiercely. “If those things—did you see those things?—in there are shaking in their boots, what chance do you think you have?”
“Better than you think, or they’re expecting. The Corps isn’t the ragtag little group they remember—”
“Yes, which is why the goddess who started your order just said we’re screwed without the demons! Face it—if the gods get past that damned spell, we’re dead, we’re all—”
“Stop it,” I said, but no one was listening.
“Thus speaks the great military mind of a casino manager!” Caleb snapped.
“Who has lived long enough to have seen a few wars in his time,” Casanova snapped back. “And it’s never just the combatants who suffer—”
“I didn’t say it was—”
“And we both know it’s easier to run a staging ground if you don’t have to worry about sabotage!”
“Stop it!” I told him. But he didn’t.
“If I were them, I wouldn’t want anyone anywhere near my only doorway to this universe, not after what happened last time. Easier to kill us, kill the fey, hell, kill the humans, too. It’s not like they need them anymore if they’re invading the hells anyway—”
“They’d need them to feed their precious herd,” Caleb growled. “There’s no way they would—”
“If they want to feed their cows, they can do it with creatures like we saw on Rosier’s world. If even the incubi can control them, the gods’ll never have to worry about rebellion. They’ll never have to worry about any—” He broke off as I got up. Because it was either that or start screaming.
“Where are you going?” Casanova demanded.
“Somewhere else!”
“Cassie—”
“No,” I told him as he grabbed for my wrist. And missed, because he was drunker than he’d been in the bar. “I can’t, all right? I just—I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” Caleb told me. And then grimaced, because it wasn’t and we both knew it. “Just . . . sit back down.”
“I don’t want to sit down!”
“It’s not like you have a choice,” Casanova pointed out. “Where else are you going to go?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I just knew I couldn’t sit there and listen to them argue when there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about any of it. I was staggering with exhaustion, but I couldn’t sleep, either, not with Pritkin in there pleading for his life. And it didn’t look like there was enough left in that bottle to get me drunk.
I didn’t know what I wanted.
“I know how you feel,” Caleb said, and took my hand.
He didn’t grab it or yank on it or even trap it, which, in the state I was in, might have sent me over the edge. The fingers were slightly open, the hold loose. I could have pulled away at any time.
And so, perversely, I didn’t want to.
“I feel the same way,” he told me. “I’ve known John over fifteen years. He’s saved my ass half a dozen times, and I’ve returned the favor maybe half that many—”
“I think you might have evened the score today,” I said, a little unevenly.
“Maybe.” If this works out remained unsaid. “But there’s nothing I can do for him now. Except wait. They’ll have a decision when they have a decision, and John’s going to need us then. And we need to be here for him. All right?”
I nodded, because I suddenly couldn’t say anything. And let Caleb pull me back down on the sofa, or whatever it really was. I didn’t know, but it was comfortable, and then he pulled me onto his shoulder, which wasn’t. But I didn’t mind right then.
“Sorry,” Casanova said, which might not have meant anything. But then he handed me the bottle again.
“It’s okay,” I told him, looking at it blearily. “I think I’ve had enough.”
“No such thing,” he muttered, glancing around. And upended it.
* * *
I woke up on something hard. I tried punching it, because this pillow had seen better days. But it didn’t seem to help.
So I punched it again.
“Ow,” someone said mildly.
My eyes opened, and I found myself looking at something that might have been a knee. I blinked, and it came more into focus. Yes, it was a knee. A very dirty, denim-covered knee that also appeared to have been drooled on.
I raised myself up slightly. And realized why my pillow had been so damned hard. My head had been resting on someone’s thigh, and whoever it was hadn’t skipped leg day.
I turned my head the other way and saw a stomach. I frowned at it, which wasn’t fair, because it was a nice stomach. Flat and hard, and with the beginnings of the deep V of muscles sometimes called an Adonis belt above the loose top of the jeans.
But there was something wrong with it anyway. And that included the sculpted, lightly furred chest above. And the rocklike shoulders above that. And the face—
My body came upright abruptly. Maybe a little too abruptly, since the room did a lazy spin around me. But I didn’t care, because I’d finally realized the problem: the body was right, but the skin was wrong. Instead of Caleb’s rich mocha, it was pale and sun kissed and—
I grabbed one of those oversized shoulders and shook it as hard as I could, which meant I maybe jiggled it a little. “They released you?”