“Please don’t have wild monkey sex on the lawn again, unless you want a bill for my therapy,” Dave grumbled as he appeared on the porch with Sebastian.
“No, please do,” Rebecca said as she joined them.
I rolled my eyes and gave Hudson a final squeeze. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to release me, but he sighed and let me go.
I threaded my fingers through his. “Come on, I have stuff to tell you all.”
We spilled into the parlor, Lucifer was eyeballing a plate of cookies that Maggie had laid on the table with tea. “Are they safe?” he asked.
“I don’t believe they contain any illicit substances, unless you consider chocolate a drug.”
Hudson sat so close to me on the sofa that his heat was blazing a warmth along my side. After the icy winds of Hell, I welcomed it.
Rebecca, Dave, Sebastian, and Aunt Liz joined us. Aunt Liz threw her hand in the air and a shimmer of magic coated the room, making sure we had privacy for this conversation.
“Tell us everything,” Dave demanded.
“Yes, everything,” Lucifer added. He was apparently here to ensure I told people the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what I’d seen.
“My grandmother is summoning demons and siphoning their magic.”
Wow, who knew I could wrap that up in a single sentence?
“For what purpose?” Sebastian asked as he leaned forward and snagged a cookie. I mirrored him.
“I have no idea.”
Aunt Liz tilted her head and caught Dave’s gaze. Ah, clearly they had been discussing this. “My mother is responsible for the death of an entire town and the magic depletion of demons. She’s also collected a powerful family grimoire. How does this all fit together?”
“The key would be figuring out what she was trying to do in Peach Tree, because there’s no way she meant to just murder a town.”
“Eloise is a cruel, ruthless, cold woman. What makes you think she didn’t mean to kill everyone?” Dave asked.
“My grandmother is all of those things, yes,” I conceded. “But she isn’t a psychopath. She might have no rules when it comes to getting what she wants, but senseless murder isn’t her style.”
“I agree,” Hudson added. “To uncover her motivation, we need to consider her goals.”
“World domination,” Lucifer growled.
I blinked. “But the treaty failed. She might have wanted to climb to the top of the ladder, but she needed the backing of the packs and vampires to make that work.”
Lucifer placed his booted foot over his opposite knee. “You think she has given up on her dreams because of a lack of signatures?”
My eyebrows slammed down. Well, when he put it like that, it seemed a foolish belief. “I still don’t understand the link to Peach Tree, we are missing something.”
Lucifer stood and straightened his tie. “I’m needed elsewhere, contact me if you discover anything new.”
“How would I contact you? Call 666?”
He smirked and handed me a black business card. Scrawled in elegant gold was his name and underneath,[email protected].
Wow.
I stood just as my wards clanged in my head, making me grimace. Who was here now? I strode over to the door and flung it open. A short woman with a mass of dark curls threaded with silver and icy blue eyes that looked like they’d been cut from glaciers stood on my porch.
“Why do you smell of brimstone and sulfur?” she asked just as Lucifer stepped beside me. She glared at him. Oh boy. She bent, opened her knitting bag which had cute kittens printed on the side, and grabbed a long bright purple scarf. She took out the crochet hook from one end, knotted the wool, and handed it to Lucifer.
“Here, Lucifer, you’ll be needing this where you are going. I certainly won’t require it in this sweltering heat.”
