“What’s his name?”
“Chaos.”
“That’s a good name for a cat.”
“You have no idea,” the man laughed, and I grinned, deciding I liked him, and if he was related to George, he couldn’t be so bad.
“I’m Harper,” I said, and the man’s smile widened.
“Nice to meet you, Harper. I’m Gabe.”
Isprawled in the dead man’s chair, watching Shemhazai pace the quaint yet outdated kitchen we had commandeered.
George, the previous owner of this home, was lying face down in the hallway where I had slit his throat several hours prior.
Lilith hadn’t been thrilled to receive his soul so early. He hadn’t been due to perish for another year or so, but it couldn’t be helped. Shemhazai had told me he needed a base close enough to keep an eye on his prey, and what my finicky chaos demon wanted, he got.
I’d left the shop and killed George an hour or so before Harper left.
However, any praise I’d been hopeful of receiving had taken a back seat to Shem’s concern over that Axel character that had shown up to harass Harper.
“I knew that fucker was going to be a problem. Littlebitch.Didn’t learn his fucking lesson in Rome. What, did he think I was going to just let him fuck her? Entitled prick. Thinks he runs shit because he’s a god. Yeah, well… how’d that work out for you last time, dipshit?”
Shem was muttering to himself, digging through a black leather bag he had packed for us when we’d left Hell.
The duffle was large enough to fit a fully grown human man, and Shemhazai had dumped it unceremoniously on George’s teal blue tile counters.
I watched him pull out my golden scepter, then dig inside again, rummaging around for some unknown trinket, presumably for something that would be used against this Axel guy.
“Not that I’m entirely againstblindlyslaying your enemies, Shemhazai, but maybe share with the class. Who is Axel? Why do we hate him?”
Shem turned his burning green eyes on me, and I was struck suddenly with how fucking beautiful he was.
The clean lines of his face and the warm, tawny brown of his skin made him look like the immortal harbinger of darkness that he was. Sophisticated and elegant but with an edge so sharp it could slice through steel.
His eyes were full of excitement, but there was a manic edge to it that was beginning to concern me.
Shemhazai was always a little unhinged, and it was something that I loved about him. However, he was also alwaysin control.I suspected his need for control came from whatever Yahweh had done to him before I had been made. Not that Iknewwhat had happened to him. Any conversation around Shem’s trauma was strictly off-limits.I had learned that over Yule.
If I didn’t want to spend the rest of our time here speaking to a brick wall, I couldn’t let him know that I could see he was already beginning to unravel.
I needed to be smart and coax answers out of him in a way that made him feel safe and in control.
“Axel.Fucking stupid-ass name. His name isn’tAxel.That’s Ares. He’s the god of war.” Shemhazai rolled his eyes and returned to his duffle-shuffle. “Not sure why he’s trying so hard to servelumberjack,but to each their own, I suppose.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “And we hate him because…?”
“We have an old rivalry. After Lilith changed me into a demon, I had a lot of…free time.”
I snorted. An idle Shemhazai was a dangerous thing. I wasn’t even sure I was imaginative enough to think of all the things he’s gotten up to while left to his own devices for centuries.
“Do tell.” I smirked, crossing my ankle over my knee and leaning back in my seat to listen.
Shem shot me an amused grin, then sighed.
“Well, after years of being cooped up in boring-ass Heaven, I decided I wanted to explore the human world. I spent a lot of time in Rome. Christianity was relatively new at the time, and most of the human emperors hated Yahweh and his disciples as much as I did.”
Shem paused his rummaging, his green eyes growing wistful.
