Chapter 50
Lucifer
Tiamat was keeping her eyes on the road instead of looking at me. Probably a good thing.
“You are too old for this level of carelessness. But luckily, I’m just old enough to enjoy blood when it’s offered.”
“I will take responsibility. For Nelly.”
I’d informed her of this decision of mine a few times already, but driving the point home seemed advisable. I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was my blood she was talking about, after all. She was flooring the gas pedal of the Porsche, and Soul was providing the low background growl we all felt.
“Take responsibility.” She scoffed. “I shall be the judge of that. I don’t understand why you lied to me to begin with, Lucy. You’re not meant to be a liar.”
“I did not lie as such, Dragon Mother. I prevaricated. Nelly does owe me, and being my boyfriend is how I chose for him to pay.”
Or it had been. Now? Now, I just wanted Nelly back and chained to my bed, and if it took the Dragon Mother’s full support to get him there, then I was only too happy to do some groveling. I would even bleed, if that was what it took.
She looked at me with her sharp green eyes. “That is no way to woo a man, Lucifer, and you will receive punishment for it.”
“Yes, Dragon Mother.” I looked down at my lap to show my humility.
Tiamat’s phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and answered while continuing to steer one-handed.
“Christine?”
Tiamat had managed to get Nelly’s police officer friend involved in under five minutes, and the Dragon Mother had convinced the human that we needed to find that other cop, pronto.
Instead of waiting in a parked car, Tiamat had decided to just drive, because as she claimed “A Dragon Mother’s instinct is infallible in such matters. ”
Well, I would take her instinct over twiddling my thumbs in a parked car.
“Yes, I got that,” she told the human on the other end. “Of course, join us. I’d like to meet you and express my gratitude in person.” Tiamat hung up the phone. “You will start by painting my new house.”
“Yes, Dragon Mother.”
“And the lawn. You will come to cut the grass every Saturday, and you will bring Nelly.”
“Yes, Dragon Mother.”
She looked over at me even as she drove, well, like the Devil. The city lights illuminated her face.
“If you cannot manage to keep Nelly, even I won’t be able to help you.”
“I have no intention of losing Lionel, Dragon Mother.” My voice had perhaps a little more edge than was proper. “Like I said, I will take—"
“Yes, you will take responsibility for him.” She sighed. “All of you, like newly hatched babes. Do you think, Lucy, that a fluffy baby chick can take responsibility for another?”
I didn’t exactly see where the similarities were. Maybe because they were fluffy, and my hair was naturally fluffy too? It mattered little.
“No, Dragon Mother?”
“No. Because they know nothing about the kind of life that is headed their way, and they need to learn about themselves before taking responsibility for anything beyond their own feathers. You will work hard to learn what you need to learn?”
“Yes, Dragon Mother.”
“Good.” She took a turn at high speed. “That’s what I want to hear.”
The Dragon Mother decelerated and parked the car neatly outside an office building without screeching tires that would have announced us.
The building was the kind that allowed one to rent out single rooms for operations that needed an address and nothing more.
None of the windows were lit, and the building had a dark aura.
I pushed some magic at the uninviting structure and gritted my teeth.
“Part of the basement is warded.”
“Yes, I can see that. Christine was right. It would appear this is the place.”
Tiamat got out, and Soul and I followed. I saw the hellpoodle show teeth, white and sharp with the force of the curse she bore.
“You may do the bulk of the rescuing,” the Dragon Mother said. “I will observe.”
“Yes, Dragon Mother.”
She was going to judge as well, no doubt. Once I’d made sure Nelly was all right, maybe he’d be open to some swooning.
And Nelly had to be all right. I wanted to tear heads off, badly, knowing his all right-ness had been threatened.
For one thing, confessing my overeager labeling of Nelly’s and my relationship so soon and under these circumstances had been less than ideal.
Not that I’d ever hold on to a fickle truth over Nelly’s safety, but still, his tendency toward being difficult really made my tendency toward always, always telling the truth complicated to maintain.
If he kept ruining that for me, I’d only have my flawless hair to fall back on.
And the magical force and raw power of an immortal god, of course, but that was a given.
For another, to see Nelly and presume you might touch him with foulness, harm his nocturnally pale skin…
The thought itself was vile. In many ways, Nelly was like a puppy or a baby chick, just as the Dragon Mother had said.
I realized then what she had been meaning to tell me: that Nelly needed care, just like one such fluff ball, maybe a nice cage to keep him in and make sure no foxes caught sight of his sightly feathers.
He was a swan prince who needed fussing over indeed.
With my mission clear, I led the way as the three of us walked through the opening in the metal fence, which was bent out of shape in places, graffitied in others. We crossed the aged pavement with cracks through which weeds had sprouted.
The warding was like a lure. It was too strong for anything that might be hidden away in an area like this; a rare strength in wards and not something humans used a lot.
The front door was locked, but with a wave of my hand and a thimbleful of magic, it swung open. At least with the warded space being in the basement, it would involve less stairs than a tower rescue.
Inside, Soul took the lead. I gave the place the most cursory of glances. Linoleum floor stained with the scuff marks of shoes, numbered mailboxes, dust in the corners. I did not want my Nelly here.
“If you cannot keep calm, maybe I should do the rescuing after all?” Tiamat said from behind me.
I accidentally growled at her. “Excuse me. I’ve got it, Dragon Mother.”
“Mm-hmm.”
What force it took to make me, the Devil, feel incompetent with just that hummed note of disapproval. I would have been impressed if I hadn’t been so unhappy about the general state of things and with my boyfriend being hidden from me behind wards.
Soul waited by a door painted a sort of ugly blue that should have been illegal to sell. It had scratch marks all over, and a few dents as well.
I turned the knob, and the poodle went down the stairs, claws clicking. It was even darker here, but neither I nor the Dragon Mother minded. We followed Soul silently.
The warded place was to the right. There was a light on at the end of the hallway, but it was the dull yellow of piss.
It illuminated the dusty, dirty floor, and the rough walls.
All of that made my skin crawl. Nelly would not leave my sight for the foreseeable future, that much was certain at this point.
Above the door, to the left of the lintel, I spotted the first ward. It had been drawn with black paint. Wards were like magical cursive, and this one had been done by someone well-familiar with the art.
Yet, while the lines showed practice and care, there was something jerky about them, almost like the person who’d created the ward had been trembling at the time.
This meant the officer I was reasonably certain had taken Nelly was either working with someone who knew warding but was too old to keep a steady hold on a brush, or he had forced someone to paint it for him.
Nelly should’ve been easily able to handle one human as depraved as this. I wanted him to burst through the door, stumble into my arms, and declare that I was late, but he did not. I tried the door and found it locked.
I could break the ward or use magic to force the lock like I’d done upstairs, but without knowing the rest of the ward system, doing that could trigger spells or other defenses. I wasn’t worried for my own safety, but certainly concerned with how it might affect Nelly’s.
“Let me,” Tiamat whispered.
Her voice had darkened. The unstoppable force of a dragon hovered at my back now.
I gave a sharp nod and stood aside. Tiamat bent toward the lock and pulled a hairpin from her dark locks. The lock gave in less than a minute.
“Human skills,” the Dragon Mother said, putting the pin back. “Learning them does keep one humble.”
I nodded and stepped past her. Beyond the door, which swung open on well-oiled hinges, there was another hallway running perpendicular to the one that we were in. There were two doors, one left, one right. Soul picked right, and I trusted the hellpoodle’s nose.
The door on the right wasn’t locked. I pulled it open carefully, and Soul dashed through, completely silent but for her claws on the ground. I followed.
The room smelled of blood. Wards were drawn and carved all along the walls and on a plastic sheet curtain that wavered like foul miasma.
“What demon spawn are you?” I heard someone ask from behind that milky plastic curtain.
I walked toward the voice.
“I…I don’t know.”
Nelly. Thank every saint, demon, demigod, and made-up creature that never lived, Nelly was alive.
I hurried toward him, but Soul was well ahead of me. She ducked under the plastic sheet, gave a sharp, vicious growl, and attacked.
“Damn dog!”
I pushed the plastic aside.
Nelly was on the floor, bound, shocked, and shackled.
He was gaping at Soul, who’d gotten just the rubber boot of that thing Nelly had flirted with, but bless that hellpoodle, she was not letting go.
The thing in the rubber boots looked winded already.
He was holding a scalpel though. We’d made it in time.
“L-Lucy?”