“Nonetheless, that isn’t what I’m here for. I’m simply gathering information. My name is Valac, and I mean you no harm.”
“Sure,” Talon said, stepping back. “If we’re finally doing official introductions, you can call me Talon. This leviathan here is Shadrach.”
Yes, he was familiar with the names. They had both been on Earth for a very long time. If anyone could help him navigate the surface, it would be them. “A pleasure. And the rest?”
Talon gestured to each of them in turn. “Alex, Isaac, Ira, Luke, Malachi, and Wolf. The one who was injured was Nathan, and the halfling helping him was Storm.”
No one gave him the beautiful one’s name, so Valac turned. He’d heard Nathan say his name, but he wanted to hear it for himself. Looking at him felt like the first breath of surface air, shocking and viscerally familiar at the same time. It was as though something about the human reached out and spoke to him. Beckoned to him.
Pretty blue eyes blinked in surprise when he realized he was the focus of Valac’s attention once more. “I—I’m not really a part of this.”
“Your name.” He was desperate to hear it.
The human licked his lips, a motion that drew Valac’s eyes to the bow shape of his mouth and the plushness of his bottom lip. “Julian.”
Julian. A beautiful jewel, indeed.
He tore his attention back to the matter at hand. “I come seeking answers. There is unrest amongst the demons. The possessors are being dealt with below for their treasonous disobedience with Amon, but Lilith’s death has riled many of the halflings. She was in power with them for a long time. Many deferred to her, both here on the surface and below. She even acted as an avenue of communication to the halflings on the surface for some of my superiors. Her death has created a gap in our forces. I’m here to find out why she was killed.”
“She hated us,” Talon said blithely. “She was trying to kill us, so we killed her first.”
“Trying to kill you how? She was hunting you?”
“She put out a bounty on Talon’s head,” Shadrach said. “Paladins attacked the nightclub she owned, and she blamed us for it. Talon, specifically.”
Only some of those words made sense. “What is a paladin and a nightclub, and why would she blame Talon or the rest of you for the attack? Did you instigate it?”
Three answers came to him at once.
Talon said, “Yes.”
Alex said, “No.”
And Ira said, “Kind of.”
All three of them scowled at each other.
“Explain,” Valac said patiently.
“I’m a paladin,” Julian piped up, and Valac was delighted for the excuse to look at him again.
“Were you a part of the attack on the—nightclub?” The word tasted unfamiliar on his tongue.
The ghost of a smile crossed Julian’s face. “No, I wasn’t involved in that. Paladins are holy warriors from the Paladin Guild of Los Angeles. We hunt demons. They attacked because they believed the halflings were staging some sort of plan to seduce our warriors away from the cause.”
Valac looked to the halflings, scattered around the room with their humans. “Were you?”
“No!” several of them protested at once.
“Those of us here,” Talon said, gesturing to the demons, “found human, uh, mates, if you will, who also happened to be paladins. The guild thinks it’s a concerted effort to weaken their numbers.”
Human mates, Valac thought. He’d never heard of such a thing, and he avoided looking at Julian as the words took root in his mind.
“So the paladins attacked the halflings,” Talon went on. “We were there at the nightclub for the attack?—”
Julian interjected, “A nightclub is a place that opens at night that plays loud music and sells alcoholic drinks to people for recreational purposes.”
Talon looked miffed at the interruption, but Valac gave Julian a grateful nod for the explanation. Similar establishments had existed for a very long time. It seemed he was just unfamiliar with this modern name.
