Clint flinched at whatever he saw on my face. And then he started crying. His shoulders shook with full-fledged sobs. I rubbed at my temple. Vas wrinkled his nose.
“Listen,” I said, since Vas was clearly wrestling with his disgust. “There’s still a way for you to live through this. Just tell us everything we want to know. I’ve got places to go, things to do tonight. I don’t have time for torture. And if you make us drag this out, it’s really going to piss me off, you know?”
Clint’s breath hitched and he shot me a look of betrayal before turning to Vas. If he was expecting the demon to play good cop, he’d be waiting a while. Vas kept his face blank and simply nodded. “What she said.”
The door opened and Sitri walked in, handing me a file. I raised one eyebrow as I opened it. Vas had clearly passed Clint’s info onto Sitri when he checked his license and Sitri had already done his background checks.
“Says here you’re a bad guy, Clint. Looks like you served some time. For sexual assault.” I raised my head and watched the blood slowly drain from his face. I pulled a throwing knife and flicked it through the air, throwing and catching it as I smiled at him.
Then I let out a low whistle as I read the rest of his file. “Out on good behavior, huh? I bet your parole officer would be unhappy to learn what you were up to with these auctions.”
He stared at me and I closed the file. “Why don’t you just go ahead and tell me what I need to know.”
He cleared his throat. His eyes glistened with tears and snot dripped from his nose.
“Okay,” he said.
I slipped my phone from my back pocket and pulled up a picture Aubrey had sent me of Hrunting. “See this sword? I want to know everything you know about it.”
His mouth dropped open. Then he swallowed. “I can’t talk about that. They’ll kill me.”
Vas dropped whatever magic hid his wings from view. The cell was just wide enough for him to stretch them out slightly, although not to his full wingspan.
“Ooh,” I said. “Pretty.”
He shot me a look and I realized my hand was poised in the air above his left wing.
“I have a feeling Samael won’t be pleased if you touch another demon’s wings.” He eyed the camera in the corner of the room. I showed whoever was watching my teeth and stroked a hand down Vas’s wings.
I didn’t know why I was so obsessed with demon wings. Maybe because they were always hidden from my view. Maybe because I was half demon, but I hadn’t exactly won the genetic lottery, and I would never fly on my own terms.
“Soft,” I said, “and deadly.” I turned to Clint and wrinkled my nose as the sharp smell of urine hit me. “Tell me you didn’t just piss your pants.”
Clint’s face was ashen as he stared at Vas. I had a new appreciation for the demons’ torture methods. Shove their suspect in one of these cells, show them just how otherworldly they were, and they’d be willing to sing like terrified little birdies. I bet they hardly ever had to clean these cells after interrogating humans.
Other than the piss, of course.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Clint burst out. “I have a friend– a guy who works for the fae. He heard they were moving some important sword. He hates the fae— his wife left him for some light fae dude and he wanted to make them pay.”
“So he stole the sword.”
Clint nodded.
“What’s your friend’s name?”
He clamped his mouth shut. I stared at him and waited.
“Look, he’s not a bad guy, okay? He just kind of snapped.”
“Name.”
“Mike Brown. I don’t think he knew quite what he had taken, he just wanted to get rid of it.”
The name was familiar. He’d been on Aubrey’s list— one of the guys who hadn’t turned up to work for at least a couple of days in the past week.”
“So you helped him with that.”
He nodded. “I know a guy who authenticates these kinds of things. His name’s Durin and he’s seelie— barely any power, but he can read artifacts. He said it was the real thing. I was going to sell the sword at auction, but then this woman got in touch with me. I guess Durin ran his mouth.”
