Murmur was asleep in her bed. Because he was traumatized after having been brought back to life. Because he had been dead for nearly two days.
What the hell was her life? It was insane. Madness.
She tried to block the sympathy that filled her. She had to harden her heart.
She had cut people from her life for far less than what he’d done to her. She never forgave and she never gave second chances. She’d always been that way, and she wasn’t ashamed of it. The world was a cruel and lonely place, and she’d learned to protect herself before anyone else.
Iris had warned her that Murmur was a liar, and she had learned firsthand how true that was. She would never be able to take him at his word again without wondering how manydifferent ways he could twist it. Even if he swore a vow, she could never trust him not to find some minute loophole and exploit it the second it suited him.
When he was awake, they would go their separate ways. While he’d been dead, she’d been heartbroken, and she’d let go of her anger and been willing to forgive him.
But he was alive again, which meant she wasn’t forgiving shit.
Belial landed back in the summoning seal in his office on Earth, fighting to get the rage under control. He hadn’t willingly surrendered to it in a long time. It was only his shock about what he’d just witnessed that gave him any power over it at all.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t come back as a flaming tornado, because he did. He punched several holes in the walls and swept all the contents of the desk onto the floor.
He’d just picked up said desk and hefted it overhead, ready to throw it into the punctured drywall, when Ash and Raum came bursting through the door.
He hadn’t even realized they were here. His brothers were like stray cats. He fed them once, and they just kept showing up unannounced. Luckily, it appeared Mist and Meph were elsewhere, so he only had to deal with two of them for now.
“What the hell is going on?!” Asmodeus shouted.
There was a whole lot of commotion, which Bel mostly tuned out as he threw the desk into the wall and watched it crumple, the decorative legs snapping off as it crashed back onto the floor.
And then a bucket of ice-cold water hit him in his face.
Always Raum with the goddamn water. Still, it did the trick.
Bel blinked and found himself standing in carnage, his wet hair dripping in his eyes, his brothers staring at him. He slowly regained his normal height and state of mind.
“Fuck,” he said.
Asmodeus nodded knowingly.
“What happened?” Raum asked, lowering the bucket like it was a weapon at the end of a battle.
“Murmur called in his first favor.”
Asmodeus and Raum exchanged looks. “What was it?” Raum asked.
Murmur’s stupid fucking letter hadn’t said Bel couldn’t tell anyone what he was up toafterhe completed the task, so he went right ahead and told them. “Remember how you used to be afraid of what would happen to demons who evolved after death?” Bel asked Asmodeus.
His brother nodded warily.
“Well, I just learned the answer to that.”
“What? How?”
Bel took a breath and started at the beginning, explaining everything—Murmur’s letter, the empty library, the portal, the stone door with the broken seal. He told them about the Nine Rings, and the prison he’d opened. He explained how the trapped souls had whooshed past him on their flight to freedom, and as they touched him, he’d seen glimpses of their lives and memories.
“They were all demons. I even knew some of them.” He dragged a hand through his sopping hair, pulling it back from his face. He was glad he’d left it long after his last rage. That would have been a waste of a haircut. “Lucifer was keeping them trapped in the Nine Rings, locked behind some kind of seal. I think he must have been using them as a power source, feeding off them.”
“Thank fuck we didn’t die,” Raum said unhelpfully.
Bel shook his head. “Murmur wanted to kick off a war. Why else would he have had me open the door? He knew Lucifer would be able to sense me in his territory and would retaliate.”
“Fuck,” Ash said.
