Chapter Six
Azagoth couldn’t remember the last time he’d been
nervous about anything. After all, he ruled his own realm and was one of the
most powerful beings in existence.
But the thought of seeing his daughter Idess and her son,
his grandchild, made him twitchy, and it had for the last few months. Ever
since the day he learned the details about her past.
He hadn’t been able to even look at Idess without thinking
of how she’d grown up, and how desperate she was to protect her son from life’s
ugliness. Because that was what a parent did.
You didn’t know.
No, for a long time he hadn’t known how she, or any of his children grew up. Their mothers had placed them with human
parents, and he didn’t see them until they were fully grown, sometimes
centuries later, more often never at all. A few had shared with him their
experiences of life when they’d believed they were human, and their stories
were horrific.
But Azagoth hadn’t felt pity. Or sorrow. Or guilt. Before
Lilliana, he’d been as cold as an arctic stone. His offspring were tough, and
they’d survived. Their pasts had hardened them, turned
them into the warriors they needed to be.
No, he hadn’t cared at all about their misery.
Then Lilliana came along and shattered the layer of ice that
had encased his heart. It had been incredible and life-giving, but now that
he’d opened his realm to all his Memitim offspring, more and
more of his children were showing up and telling him about their “human”
lives. With few exceptions, just one, really, their stories were full of the
kind of shit that gave people nightmares.
Idess’s story in particular had
been a tale of horror, slavery, and abuse that made him want to go back in time
and slaughter every fucker who had messed with his baby girl.
Lilliana could make that happen. As an angel with the
ability to time-travel, she could help him get bloody revenge for all his
children. But doing so would mess with incalculable timelines and would earn
him a death sentence from God himself. His only consolation was that a handful
of the scum who had made his children’s lives miserable were, in fact,
imprisoned in the Inner Sanctum, where he could torture their useless souls for
all eternity.
His hands actually shook as he
joined Idess and Lilliana at the picnic table in the gazebo Lilliana had built
near the brook that ran behind his palace. Little Mace gave him a big grin as
he sat nearby playing with building blocks. Looked
like he was creating a dog. Or, more likely, a hellhound.
“Father,” Idess said, coming to her feet to greet him. Of
all his offspring, only Idess would show him physical affection, and she did so
now, giving him a brief hug and a peck on the cheek as she pulled away.
It made him shake harder. What the everfucking hell was
wrong with him?
“Have a seat.” Lilliana, her long chestnut hair framing her
ageless face, patted the bench next to her. “We were just about to pour some
wine and discuss ideas Idess had for bringing more Memitim to Sheoul-gra.”
Reaching for the wine bottle, she gave him a playful wink. “Idess seems to
think that more of them aren’t coming to live here because you’re scary.”
Lilliana’s tone was teasing, her smile bright, but the
underlying truth, that his children were afraid of him, suddenly made an
impact, cratering out his chest cavity like a meteor strike. He’d never cared
about that in the past. Hell, he was proud of the fact that his offspring
feared him. Fear...respect... It was all the same, right?
“Am I scary, Idess?” he asked, trying to sound...not scary.
Idess thrust her wine glass out at Lilliana. “Um, yes.
Absolutely.”
Still standing, he glanced over at Mace, who was tasting a
building block now. “And yet, you brought your child to see me.”
“Just a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have,” she admitted.
“But things have changed.” She gave Lilliana a secret smile that wasn’t as
secret as she probably thought it was.
“I’d like to think I played a role in that,” Lilliana said,
as if she didn’t know that she was the sole reason he wasn’t still a monster.
Because of Lilliana he had feelings. “Yeah, I’m a real boy
now.”
She laughed, her amber eyes sparkling as she finished
pouring the wine. “Look at you, referencing Pinocchio. The movies I make you
watch are paying off.”
“Yeah, well, Pinocchio got turned back into a puppet.”
Idess shook her head. “You’re
thinking of what happened to him in one of the Shrek movies.”
Ah, right. He liked the Shrek
films. Ogres weren’t usually that funny.
Mace held out his arms and Idess scooped him up. “Do you
want to hold your grandson?”
He stared at the squirming toddler, his heart racing, his
mouth dry. Even his palms had begun to sweat. The
child was the most innocent thing to have ever stepped foot in this realm, and
Azagoth was the most evil. His hands... His hands had
done things that child would never even be able to comprehend, and they didn’t
belong anywhere near such purity.
“I can’t.” He backed up a few steps, hoping he didn’t look
as panicked as he felt. “I’ll drop him.”
Lilliana stood, concern darkening
her gorgeous eyes. “Darling, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, still backing up. “I just have things to
do. Appointments. I have to go.” He didn’t care that
he looked like an idiot. He had to get out of there. “Idess, I’ll ah... I’ll
see you later.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He flashed into his office, his
heart pounding, his breath burning in his throat.
What the fuck was happening to him?
With trembling hands, he poured himself a double shot of
tequila from the bar on the far wall, downed it, and poured another. As he
raised the glass to his lips for the second time, he noticed the flashing light
on his communications pad.
He scanned the message from Jim Bob, one of his Heavenly
spies, and trashed it. He wasn’t interested in low-level gossip speculating
about the mysterious author of a new comic book series that was outing a lot of
underworld and Heavenly secrets.
Nope, Azagoth didn’t give a shit about any of that. What he
cared about was getting his emotions under control and his life in order. He
didn’t know how to deal with his rogue emotions, but he did have an idea about
the rest.
Unfortunately, that meant dealing with the Memitim Council,
and for some reason, the only people ever appointed to the Council hated him.
For thousands of years he’d kept
out of their business, letting them govern the Memitim in whatever
shortsighted, dumbass manner they saw fit.
But those days were over. Azagoth had been absent as a
parent, very hands-off, and as a result, his children had suffered.
There was a tap at the door, and his assistant, Zhubaal,
entered. “My lord, Mariella is here.”
“It’s about fucking time,” he snarled. “Send her in.”
The tall, elegant brunette swept into his office, her purple
velvet robes swishing around her high-heeled, jewel-encrusted shoes, her
cinnamon wings extended and puffed up, as if she expected a fight.
It wasn’t as if a fight would be completely unprecedented.
Azagoth despised angels. Most of them, anyway. But the worst
of the very worst were those who looked down their heavenly
noses at him. Oh, they respected his power and his position, but on a
personal level, they thought he was scum.
Mariella, in particular, thought he
was a supreme lowlife, and she had for the entire three centuries in which
she’d been his primary Heavenly liaison.
He hated her.
He glared as she launched into a tirade, lecturing him about
his duties that related to Memitim. Thing was, she’d never been Memitim, wasn’t
on the Council, and she didn’t even work in the embassy. She should be lecturing him about anything but Memitim.
“In summary,” she said, “you are out of luck.”
For the millionth time he thought about tossing her into the
tunnel behind the wall panel and sending her to play with millions of demon
souls. Just five minutes in the Inner Sanctum would wipe that smug look off her
face. But it wouldn’t get him what he wanted.
“I’m not asking for the Memitim program to end,” he gritted
out. “I’m asking for some changes.”
“No.”
“Dammit, let me speak to someone on the fucking council.”
“Azagoth, you agreed to this thousands of years ago. You
signed a contract in blood. And now, with fewer Memitim than ever, it’s even
more crucial that the rules be strictly followed.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he snapped. “There’s no shortage of
Memitim.”
“You have stopped fathering them, have you not?”
Stupid question, because she knew the damned answer. “You
know I did, a couple of years ago when I took Lilliana as my mate. But that’s
hardly enough time for Memitim numbers to suffer.”
She shook her head. “Production started going down centuries
ago,” she said, making it sound like Azagoth had been putting his children
together on an assembly line. “We used to get seventy-two Memitim from you per
year. But even as the human population exploded and increased the need for
guardians, you slowed down. Started refusing the females sent to you. You used
to be so...prolific.”
That was because he used to believe in the cause. And he’d
been young, dumb, and horny. Oh, and evil. Very evil. Then, sometime around the
Industrial Revolution, he’d begun to grow bitter and angry. Rebellious. And it
had been extremely satisfying to refuse the angels sent to his bed.
Still, he’d always left Memitim business to the Memitim
Council. Until recently. Recently...he’d mated
Lilliana. He’d filled his realm with his offspring and had gotten to know them.
He’d also lost some who had died in battle protecting their Primori. And just
this year, three others, mere children, had lost their
lives growing up in horrible human conditions.
Oh, yeah, it was time for some shit to change, and he was
done being civil.
“Listen to me,” he snarled as he backed her against the door he was going to toss her out of. “On some items there