Chapter Thirty-Four Lucifer
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lucifer
I’m out on the rooftop, nursing a drink and a cigarette alone by the pool, when Astaroth finally locates me. The orange glow of my cigarette pulses as I lift it to my lips, the sound of his footsteps approaching. I already sent word to him about Charlotte’s stalker several hours ago, as soon as I left the playroom, and my demons move swiftly. Whoever the perpetrator is, if they’re in this godforsaken city, I will find them, and by daybreak, I’ll have torn them apart, limb from limb.
Antoine’s death will prove little more than child’s play by comparison.
“Nothing yet,” Astaroth says, ensuring my already foul mood has no chance of lifting.
“Find them,” I snarl. “None of you rest until you do.”
Astaroth nods, used to dealing with me and my moods. “The doorman says you have a visitor.”
I lift a brow.
“Azmodeus.”
I wave a hand, flicking the ashes over the building railing. My brother picked a poor night to come here. “Send him up.”
Astaroth turns to leave then, but my next words give him pause.
“What were you doing at Az’s club? The night Charlotte and I were there?” A slightly deflated unicorn floatie droops nearby, one that the staff must have missed from when Charlotte and her friend used the pool earlier this afternoon. I toe it into the water with my foot.
I haven’t spoken to her since I left her alone in the playroom earlier, but she made her feelings about my punishment abundantly clear, when, rather than tell me herself, she sent the information as an angrily written note through one of the staff.
She’s furious with me.
Let her be.
Half the world already is.
Astaroth lifts a brow.
I wave a dismissive hand, lying easily. “She mentioned it before she fell asleep. Apparently, one of Az’s bartenders told her.”
He nods patiently, though I don’t usually ask such frivolous questions. “Gathering intel. On Az, among others,” he says without missing a beat.
But Astaroth is anything but patient. Even with me.
And most especially when it comes to the “little human” I now keep by my side.
“Of course.” I nod, dismissing him, as I always have, in a way that shows how I’ve trusted him for over a millennium.
But for once, I let myself wonder if perhaps that trust might be misplaced.
My brother arrives on the deck a moment later, brandishing a thick, black dossier at me. “You have no idea how many people I had to fuck in order to get this.”
I’m not certain if he means it in the literal or proverbial sense, but it matters little to me.
He tosses the information onto the pool chair in front of me before flopping down into the one beside it. “I had my demons do some digging on the Handler.”
“And?” I pick up the dossier, flipping it open to the first page as I balance my cigarette between my lips.
Azmodeus may appear to be nothing more than the ultimate fuckboy, but what most fail to realize is that pillow talk is often rife with secrets.
And Azmodeus deals in them.
They’re his stock in trade that will never lose value, unlike human currency.
“Our beloved sister is the one who hired him to kill Paris Starr, of course. Greedy bitch that she is. Though she’s not the only one he’s working for, apparently.”
I lift a brow.
“A human organization. Call themselves the Righteous. Fucking unoriginal, if you ask me. They don’t like our being here. They’re causing quite a bit of a stir in the right-wing evangelical community.”
“Mmm,” I mutter, uninterested.
“And I also found a little something on your human queen,” he adds, grinning ruefully.
I don’t need to snarl to threaten him.
The light around us moves, suddenly casting a shadow where my wings used to be. The shadows unfurl like they used to before my bloody Father stole them from me.
“Sheesh. Relax, Luce.” Azmodeus lifts his hands. “I’m not threatening her. Just doing some digging. Like any concerned brother would. For research, that’s all.”
That hardly puts me at ease.
“When it comes to Charlotte, fuck around and find out, brother.” I pin him with the weight of my gaze before I thumb through the dossier he delivered, already done dealing with him for this evening.
“All right. You win. I’ll leave,” he says, throwing up his hands. “But there’s ... something you should know, Lucy.”
My shoulders stiffen.
I tell myself it’s the use of Michael’s old nickname that sends my blood boiling, and not the way I feel about the human woman Azmodeus speaks of as he says, “I hate to break it to you, brother, but ...” He grins wickedly. “Our dear Charlotte is already married.”