We put on a fresh pot of coffee, because coffee made everything okayer, and waited for our guests to arrive.
Which they all did. Like all at once. It was weird.
Garrett. Uncle Bob. Angel. Gemma. Osh.
Wait, Gemma?
“Uh, hey, Gem,” I said, greeting everyone with a hug, including the man who once tried to invent a hug repellent spray thanks to me, my wonderful uncle Bob. And now he was married to my bestie. It’s like we were really related now. Not Cookie and I. We became sisters the moment we met. But Uncle Bob was always iffy at best.
I stepped to Gemma and pulled her into a hug, too.
“Whatcha doin’ here?” I asked into the suddenly very awkward silence.
“Spending time with my little sister. Can’t a girl spend time with her little sister?”
“No.”
She laughed and waved a dismissive hand.
“No, really, Gem.”
Growing more serious, she lifted her chin and said, “I’m ready.”
I strode to the coffeepot for a refill. I just couldn’t seem to get enough of it lately. Probably because of the lack of a good siesta. “You’re ready?”
She braced herself and nodded.
“For?”
“This.” She gestured around her. “You. Whatever it is you do, I’m ready.”
“I’m not sure you are.”
Uncle Bob stepped closer as the others staked their claims in Cookie’s office. “Gem, I think maybe—”
“No,” she said, her mind set. “It’s time I got more involved. You know, step up to the plate. Go for the touchdown. Turn the dial to eleven.”
For someone with a genius IQ, she was really bad at metaphors.
“What the hell does any of that mean?” I asked.
She drew in a deep breath. “I’m here for the meeting.”
“No.”
“I want to become more involved in your life and what you do.”
“No.”
“Why does Uncle Bob get to be involved and not me?”
“No. And who told you we were having a meeting?”
Osh spoke up from his chair in the corner. “I think she should stay.”
Osh may have looked nineteen, but he was centuries old if he was a day. His inky-black hair brushed his shoulders, and he wore his traditional black top hat and black duster, a look he pulled off with such charm and style, it was hard to put him in his place, but put him in his place I did.
“Just pretend this is your hometown. Daeva don’t have a say.”
He narrowed his bronze eyes on me. “That’s low, sugar. Even for you.”
“See?” Gemma said. “That’s interesting. What’s a Daeva?”
“A slave demon from hell,” I said, hoping to scare her right off the bat.
“Oh.” She thought about that a moment, then said, “Okay. Well, I’ve learned something already.”
This was going to be a long morning.
We sat around Cookie’s desk, Uncle Bob next to my best friend and associate-slash-receptionist. He took her hand in his, and I felt a small rush of pleasure erupt out of her.
Garrett stood back, pretending to be annoyed that I’d asked him if the ho had called. He was worried about Reyes. As was I.
Osh sat in the farthest corner, tipping his chair back like a kid in high school.
Angel popped in and hung back with Osh, probably because Osh was the only person in the room besides me who could see him.
Even Artemis showed up. She sat at Angel’s feet, and he and Osh took turns rubbing her ears.
Gemma sat next to me. I’d commandeered Cookie’s chair and sat behind her desk so I could see everyone as I explained the situation.
I cleared my throat, but Garrett motioned to me, lifting the rope he had in his hands.
“Oh, right.” I looked at Osh. “Osh, we are going to have to tie you up and torture you. Sorry.”
“Really?” He stood and removed his top hat, a broad grin splitting his perfect face. With the enthusiasm of a virgin at a brothel, he slapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. “Where do you want me?”
“That chair will be fine. Just scoot it to the middle of the room.”
Cookie’s office wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to tie Osh up and torture him.
Gemma’s eyes rounded in concern when Osh sat down and Garrett began the bondage process. Was it wrong that I had a hankering for gay porn at that moment?
I walked over to them to make sure Garrett’s knots were inescapable. But inescapable to a human and inescapable to a Daeva were two very different things. Osh could most likely get out of pretty much any sticky situation, but if it did nothing else, it would damned sure slow him down. Garrett’s handiwork made certain of that.
Osh grinned up at me. “You gonna do the deed, sugar? You gonna hurt me?”
“I might.”
He winked, and a microsecond later I realized I was flirting with my future son-in-law. I’d seen what would become Beep’s army. Who would become Beep’s army. Most of it, anyway. And Osh was most definitely spoken for in the future.
Angel sidled up to me. “I want to be tied up.”
I turned to him and put my hand on his forever-boyish face. “I’m fairly certain the ropes would slide through you, lindo.”
“We should check it out, just in case,” he said.
But I barely heard him. The moment I laid my hand on his face, I felt a warmth at the back of my neck. A heat slide down my spine.
I spun around, hoping, but saw nothing. When I turned back to Osh, however, he was looking in the same direction the heat had come from.
“What?” I turned again. “What did you see?”
All traces of humor were gone. Everyone in the room followed Osh’s line of sight to no avail. But Osh tilted his head, completely bound now, and leveled a serious stare on me.
“Why am I tied up?”
“Because we have to take certain precautions.”
Kneeling next to him, I placed a hand on his bound arm, his muscles straining against the restraints. Garrett did a helluva job.
“Osh, I need you calm when I tell you what’s happened.”
He glanced behind me, then back again. “You think I don’t already know?”
I looked again but saw nothing. “What? Did you see him?”
He bowed his head. “How did it happen?”
“Osh, what did you see?”
When he refocused on me, his face had paled. “Him. For a split second. Angry. Wild. Volatile.” His expression turned incredulous. “You released him.”
“What? No.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I stood and walked to the door of my office for some other place to look. Anywhere other than his accusing stare. “It was an accident.”
When I turned back to him, his head was bowed again, his jaw tight behind his dark hair.
“Osh, what are you thinking?”
“Do you have any idea how powerful he is? What he could do with the slightest thought?”
“What do you mean, I released him? Released him from where?”
“He’s a god, sugar. He was always in there, lurking. Waiting for his chance to rise again.”
“Osh, he’s been a god for … well forever. But he’s known he’s a god for weeks now. And I … I sent him into the god glass.”
He sucked in a sharp breath of air, astonished.
“Not for that reason. Not for … look, he was just supposed to go in and check the place out. There were innocent people trapped inside. I wanted to go, but he insisted I send him. I was supposed to wait sixty seconds and call him back out. I didn’t even wait that long. I called his name not fifteen seconds later, but nothing happened.”
“Keep going.”
“I tried everything. Nothing worked. Nothing…” I’d begun to panic. Osh’s reaction made me realize even more how bad things were. “And then about an hour later, the glass exploded, and he came out as well as all the innocent people who’d been trapped inside.”
The astonishment on his face turned to something akin to terror. “He opened the gates of a hell dimension on this plane?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“When?”
“Three days ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys the minute it happened.”
I scanned the room to assess reactions. So far, everyone seemed more confused than worried, though Cookie was leaning toward the latter. The only exception was Angel. My beautiful boy.
“I should’ve told you. I was just so taken aback. I thought I could find him and fix it.”
“What are we talking about?” Garrett asked him. “What needs to be done?”
Uncle Bob spoke then, his patience quickly waning. “Pumpkin, you need to let the rest of us in on what’s at stake here.”
I offered him my best apologetic expression, then returned to Osh. “He’s still Reyes.”
“Untie me.”
“No,” I said, jumping forward. I knelt before him again. “He’s still Reyes, Osh.”