“What’s so important you had to dog me down here?”

He gasps for air and waves a crumpled piece of vellum at me. He wants me to come down there and take it but that isn’t going to happen. I wait until he can breathe again.

“It’s the banquet tonight, my lord.”

“What banquet?”

“To celebrate the laying of the City Hall cornerstone.”

“Tell them I can’t make it. I have the flu or the clap. Whatever it is you cloven-hoof types get.”

“But, my lord. You have to bless the banquet.”

More rituals.

“Get Merihim to do it.”

“It’s not his place, my lord.”

“Okay. Then cancel it.”

He scrambles to his feet. The vellum isn’t crumpled anymore. He’s holding on to it like a life preserver.

“You can’t.”

“Then don’t cancel it. I’m putting you in charge. If Merihim can’t do it, find someone who can. I’m busy.”

I walk back in the direction of the fake wall.

I hear him come after me.

“You’ve been obstinate in the past, my lord. But refusing the banquet is beyond acceptable. And I heard that you dismissed the planning committee today.”

He’s right about one thing. I was having so much fun I forgot about politics. Lies and promises. It was goddamn stupid to let that slip.

I turn and he comes up short.

“And you know who Marchosias and a few others think put me up to it?”

“Who?”

“You.”

He takes a step forward.

“Me?”

“Everyone knows you’re paying off half the staff to spy for you. Let you know who’s gaining power and losing power. I’m your power. You control my schedule and who gets to talk to me and see me. You must make a fortune selling my time. Of course, you can’t go too far. If I’m too hard to get hold of people start thinking you’re making a power play. A dangerous move for someone in your position.”

I look at him. He wants to say, I’m not to blame. You’re the one who doesn’t want to do anything or see anyone.

I say, “Don’t take it so hard. Marchosias has been yammering about you ever since I got here. She keeps bringing up people on her staff she says could replace you. Some of them have pretty good credentials. You didn’t know any of that? Maybe you ought to run another background check on your staff.”

He squints at me the same way the committee did when I came in late.

“With all due respect, my lord, I’m not sure I believe you.”

“One, quit with the ‘my lord’ stuff. And two, I don’t care.”

He turns like he’s going to walk away but he just stands there.

“You still here?”

“I was wondering what you’re doing down at this end of the palace. Is it for something you’ve lost or something you’ve found?”

I go over to him, tear open his shirt, and rip the talisman off his neck. The chain leaves a nice red mark on his throat.

I get in close and whisper, “I cut off my own face once because it seemed like a good idea at the time. What do you think I’ll cut off you?”

He gives me a tiny nod and steps back, rubbing the red mark where the chain broke.

“It’s nice to see you with your energy back. I’ve been worried.”

“What does that mean?”

He waves his hand up and down me.

“Just an observation. Since you replaced our other Lucifer, you’ve seemed so wan and . . . what? Weak? It would be awful if people thought your armor was the only thing keeping you alive.”

How does this little shit know these things? I should snap his neck right now.

“I tell you what. Maybe you should keep this after all.”

I hold out the talisman.

He hesitates.

I hold it by two fingers and waggle it at him.

When he reaches for it, I let it drop. His gaze follows it down. I slam my shoulder into him, pinning his right hand against the wall. Grab the blade from behind my back. One quick slash and I cut off his little finger. He howls and falls to his knees, cradling his mutilated hand against his chest. Black blood oozes down his shirt. I pull off the glove that covers my Kissi arm, pick the talisman up off the floor, and drop it in my pocket. I grab him by the hair so he gets a good look at my prosthetic.

“The next time you threaten me, I’ll take your whole arm.”

First rule of threats. Always threaten big. Second rule. Always mean it, even if you don’t particularly want to do it.

He looks up at me.

“You pig. You human filth.”

“What do you expect from the Devil? A note in your personnel file?”

He’s wearing a collarless gray jacket. He manages to slip one arm out and wrap it around his bleeding hand. Leaning his good hand on the wall, he slowly gets to his feet, grimacing and cursing, and starts away down the hall.

I lean against the wall and light a Malediction.

I’ve got to remember not to drink anything I don’t get myself, preferably from outside the palace. It might not be poisoned but it will definitely be pissed in.

I guess now there’s another thing Candy doesn’t get to know about. I should start keeping a list.

I stay put until I finish my cigarette and everything is quiet but the air-conditioning. Closing my eyes, I try to reach out. Feel if there’s anything or anyone hiding nearby. I don’t get anything.

I take a long look at the false wall. Sometimes objects can pick up residual magic when someone throws powerful hoodoo nearby. When that happens, a lamp, a chair, or that massager mom keeps in her bedside table that you’re not supposed to know about can give off the same vibes as a genuinely enchanted object. That can happen to, say, a wall if someone was doing heavy spell work around here. There’s no absolute way of knowing without going forensic and that was Vidocq’s area, not mine. I wish he was here.

I step back and take a good look.

You’re not really there, are you?

I charge at what I hope is a door and not a crossbeam. It’s harder to menace people when you’re gimping around with a broken nose.

I pass through the wall like it’s air. And hit something hard. It cracks open. Wood splinters. Something heavy falls behind me. I think I found the door.

I’m in the middle of a dark, cluttered room. Behind me is the hoodoo wall, rippling like water on this side. The door is on the floor, in pieces. Someone isn’t getting their deposit back.

Wherever the hell I am, it’s dark. All I can see in the feeble pool of light through the wall is something that looks like a cluttered garage. Somewhere Dad keeps his tools for the weekend projects that help get him out of having to talk to the family.

Crates are piled all over the place. Scraps of cut and hammered metal on the floor. Tables with vises and C-clamps. Someone forgot their lunch. It stinks in here.

I feel along the wall. Find a light switch and flick it on.

Turns out it wasn’t lunch after all.

Five body bags are stacked in the corner. A sixth body wrapped in plastic is strapped to what looks like an old wooden electric chair. There’s a tear in the side of the shrink-wrapped shroud, leaking Hellion juice and exposing a black, bloated hand. It gets worse when I uncover the body. It’s the kind of stink that would turn a buzzard vegan.

It’s a woman. She’s in a legion uniform but I can’t read her name or tell what regiment she’s from. The top of her skull is missing. It looks like someone was dissecting her brain. Clamps and sutures still cling to the rotten meat.

This is new. I never heard of Hellions vivisecting their own. They do it to some of the more heinous dead souls in the House of Knives, but not to each other.

Whatever this is, it doesn’t look like torture. This was an experiment and this soldier was the lab rat. I bet if I checked the body bags I’d find more head-bone excavations. What kind of Dr. Moreau shit was going on in here? And who was doing it? Only one name comes to mind.

Mason.

What the fuck was he looking for?

You’d think with all the Hellions I’ve hacked up over the years, manhandling a dead one wouldn’t be so disgusting. But I just killed them. I didn’t stick around to watch them rot. Mason must have encased this room in heavy magic armor. Before I destroyed Tartarus, dead Hellions blipped out of existence like soap bubbles and ended up in the Hell below Hell. But Mason managed to keep these corpses intact even after they were dead. You have to admire the pure psycho will it took to pull off something like that. Admire it and then kill it. That last is the important part.