Up In Smoke (26 page)

“I doubt if he'd agree to lend any aid without some in return,” Gabriel pointed out.

“Well, there you are!” Sally said, bustling into the room with a large carrying bag. “You picked a fine time to do a disappearing act! Did you hear? Magoth is in trouble, and the poor dear needs our help. We have to get out to him on the double. He's probably being tortured even as we speak!”

I thinned my lips as Gabriel escorted us out of the suite. “Let's take the scenic route to the rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève. Maybe a few thumbscrews and bamboo under the nails will make him more agreeable.”

“May, for heaven's sake,” Sally said, rolling her eyes as she hurried ahead of us to the elevator. “They don't use thumbscrews and bamboo anymore. Now it's all high-tech. They'll probably attach a taser to his genitals or something.”

She paused, looking thoughtful.

“Somehow, I have a feeling Magoth wouldn't consider that torture so much as foreplay,” I said, getting on the elevator, Gabriel and his two bodyguards following.

“I admit, it does sound rather . . . intriguing . . . ,” she said, clearly lost in thought, only just managing to get into the elevator car before the doors closed.

Unfortunately, the ride to the fifth arrondissement didn't take that long, Tipene being familiar with the area. Twenty minutes hadn't passed before I found myself standing in the police station, reading with interest a notice about an attached crime museum. “It says they have a real guillotine blade,” I told Gabriel. “I'd like to see that.”

“A guillotine blade? Is there a torture section, as well?” Sally asked, pushing me aside to read the notice. “There's nothing I love more than a good torture exhibit, unless, of course, it's the actual practice itself.”

“What say we have a quick tour before we have to see Magoth?” I suggested.

A corner of Gabriel's mouth quirked.

“Madame Northcott? This way, please,” a pretty woman said, giving Gabriel a not-very-subtle eye before she turned and started down a hallway.

“This is going to get old very fast,” I grumbled, taking his hand in a show of outright possession.

He grinned, and tickled my palm with his thumb.

“My darling wife!” Magoth said when the policewoman opened a door to a small interrogation room, standing aside for us to enter.

I stopped, glaring at him. “Do
not
call me that.”

“Why not? You are my consort, my queen, my second in command . . . or at least fifth or sixth in command. I have a cadre of wrath demons who are above you, I'm afraid, but you're definitely in the top ten. Possibly twenty.”

I slid a worried glance to the policewoman. “I think that's just enough about your cadre.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why you insist we play these games when things could be so much easier . . .”

“Magoth! Are you all right? Have you been abused in any fashion?” Sally asked, slipping around me to hurry to his side. “I don't see any blood or even some bruising. Shouldn't there be some blood? I expected there to be blood!”

“I like how your mind works,” Magoth told her.

She preened.

I felt it was time to break up their admiration society. “What in the name of the spirits of sanity were you doing to be arrested for indecent exposure?”

“Nothing at all,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hands. Someone had found him some clothing, a T-shirt and pair of jeans that weren't his usual style, but he was incredibly handsome in them, regardless. “It is all a misunderstanding. I was visiting a quaint little fountain outside of a church, that's all. No different from any other tourist.”

“A church?” Sally asked, startled.

I frowned. What was he doing near a church? Demon lords tended to avoid those places that were respected as holy ground, no matter what the religion. All too frequently sites were chosen because the ground was founded, or seeped in that quality that enhanced abilities that could be used against those of dark origins.

“Monsieur was witnessed by a wedding party of two hundred, including three cardinals, and a papal legate, as he attempted indecent acts with a stone mermaid that sits on the top of the fountain,” the policewoman said, turning her attention on him.

“Sins of the master,” Sally swore, looking at Magoth with something that looked very much like respect.

“You were trying to have sex with a statue in a fountain?” I asked. Gabriel's lips twitched as if he was having a hard time keeping from laughing.

“It was a very
large
misunderstanding,” Magoth told me before switching his attention to the policewoman. The look he sent her was positively lecherous. “If you get my drift.”

The woman slid me a quick glance.

“Oh, don't mind her,” he said quickly, leaning back in a wooden chair in a pose that was seductive despite the bleak surroundings. “We have an open marriage.”

“Very open, to the point of being nonexistent,” I snapped. “And while we're on that subject, stop telling people we're married. I'm Gabriel's mate, not yours.”

“Sweet May, it wounds me near unto death that you would deny the fact that you are my consort,” he said, still making eyes at the policewoman, who was starting to look doubtful.

“That's true, you are, and in”—Sally's voice dropped to a whisper—“in this world, the equivalent would be a spouse.”

“I don't care. I won't have you slighting Gabriel in order to pump up your own ego,” I said, taking Gabriel's hand again.

The policewoman watched with growing suspicion. “You are monsieur's legal representative?” she asked Gabriel.

Gabriel smiled his usual charming smile. “That's right. And if you do not mind, madame and I would like to talk to my client. Privately.”

She left us alone with Magoth, but only after insisting the others remain outside. Sally raised a bit of a fuss over being excluded.

“It's not like I don't have a right to be here,” she told the policewoman. “I'm his apprentice! Well, at least I was until he sent me to May, but even if you consider that binding—and I don't, not at all, because I didn't sign on to learn how to be a consort!—even if you consider that binding, then I should still get to stay because she does, and I'm her apprentice.”

“Only family and legal representatives may remain with the prisoners,” the policewoman said, politely but firmly herding Sally out the door.

“I'll be right outside if you need me!” the latter called as the door was closed.

The second it was closed, Magoth was on his feet, storming around the room waving his hands in the dramatic fashion he favored when irritated.

“Get me out of this . . . this . . . hellhole of mortal sensibilities!” he demanded, stomping to the door and back in a fairly good imitation of a caged beast.

I leaned my hip against the small wooden table in the center of the room. “And what, exactly, do you expect me to do? You're the one who had a hard-on of such extent it required a stone statue to relieve.”

“Don't be idiotic,” he snarled, pacing between the door and the far wall. “I wasn't screwing the statue—it was a matter of a simple incantation. I was trying to bring forth a Sybarite, if you must know, not that it's any of your business.”

“You're kidding,” I said, surprised. “A lust demon? What on earth did you want a lust demon for?”

Gabriel touched my arm and nodded toward the corner. A video camera was perched jauntily on the wall, its red light blinking as it obviously filmed us.

“Er . . . that is . . . never mind.” I said, mindful of that fact. “I take it you weren't successful?”

“Do you see a small being with giant genitalia humping your leg?” he asked with an exaggerated arm movement.

“No, but it concerns me that you were even trying.” I mulled over the idea of Magoth with a being wholly devoted to pleasures of the carnal sort.

“Does it really matter what his reasons were for being arrested?” Gabriel asked, glancing at his watch. “We have things to do, little bird. I believe it would be best if we were to provide bail for Magoth and conduct our discussion in a more appropriate location.”

Magoth pounced on one of Gabriel's words. “Discussion? What discussion do you wish to have with me? I sincerely hope it is not that you regret spurning me for Manimal here, because much as I would like to see you grovel before me, I do not have time for the proper training that would be required to turn you into a suitable slave.”

“Yes, I believe it is important,” I said, answering Gabriel's question while ignoring Magoth's comment. I glanced toward the camera, picking my words carefully. “He shouldn't have access to the sort of . . . abilities . . . that would allow him to call a Sybarite.”

Magoth's eyelids dropped until he was gazing at me through half-closed lids, a smug little smile playing with his lips.

“He knows that very well, so for him to even try . . . well, it says something isn't quite as we expected it to be.”

Gabriel and I both considered Magoth, who had suddenly stopped pacing and had adopted an expression of almost angelic innocence.

“He certainly looks guilty,” Gabriel observed.

“He does, which is why I still think we should leave him here. Perhaps a time out in a mortal jail is just what he needs to let us find out what he's been up to this last week.”

Magoth snarled an oath that was not at all nice, lunging toward me.

Instantly, Gabriel was between us, blocking my view of Magoth as he growled in a threatening manner. “Do not even think about touching May.”

Magoth, to my surprise, didn't back down. Instead he took a step forward, until he and Gabriel were just a hairbreadth from each other, their gazes locked in a battle for dominance. “You think to threaten me, dragon?”

“You are in my world now,” Gabriel reminded him, the air of menace surrounding him leaving little shivers skittering up and down my back.

Magoth didn't like being reminded he lacked power in the mortal realm. His eyes glittered like icy black onyx as he tried to stare Gabriel down. “There will come a day when you will be in my domain, and then we shall see who will reign supreme.”

“I am not so foolish as to allow that to happen,” Gabriel said, relaxing just a smidgen when I pulled his arm to move him back a few inches. “There is nothing in your domain that I would ever seek.”

“You think not?” Magoth's eyes moved to me, his gaze striking me with such impact, I took an involuntary step backwards. “And yet, I can envision just such a scenario.”

Gabriel growled again, a low, deep growl that was almost inaudible but caused me to shiver even more.

Magoth smiled and stepped back, lifting his hands in a show of surrender. “Such fun and games are enjoyable, but I really do have much I should be doing. If you could just see to my release, sweet May, we can all be on our respective ways.”

“You know, something just occurred to me,” I said pleasantly, tucking my hand in the crook of Gabriel's arm.

“You realize now that my body has much to offer you?” Magoth tipped his head on the side as he considered me. “This is true, but we must consider the effect that a dragon would have on our threesome. It might be interesting, though . . . the fire, the claws . . . yes, it could be very interesting.”

Gabriel's lips thinned. I gave Magoth a look that told him I expected better. “As a matter of fact, it strikes me rather odd that you're here at all. Oh, I'm not talking about the fact that you were arrested making a lewd attack on a statue—that doesn't surprise me in the least. No, I'm talking about the fact that you're here
now
. As in, you haven't left.”

“That is a very good point,” Gabriel said, obviously understanding what I was trying not to spell out in front of a potential audience.

Magoth's face darkened. “There was a Wiccan here—” he started to answer, but I interrupted him with a pointed look toward the camera.

“You try my patience, consort,” he said irritably, and waved one hand toward the camera. It dropped to the ground, the wires that had connected it to the wall still smoking.

“Oh, great; now the mortals are going to come charging in here to ask how you did that without even going near the camera. You know what that means, don't you? Either we're going to have to spend hours trying to explain that, or we'll have to fight our way out of here,” I said, annoyed in my own right. “Which means we'll be fugitives from the mortal law.”

“You worry too much about what insignificant insects think,” he snapped. “If you cannot dodge the mortal police, you don't deserve to be in their world. In answer to your question, there was a Wiccan on the staff of the
préfecture.
She recognized me and saw to it that I was taken to this room, which, you have probably failed to notice, is bound in silver.”

I looked around the room, frowning.

“I noticed,” Gabriel said. “I can smell it.”

“The famous dragon ability to smell precious metals . . . well, wyvern, in answer to your mate's question,
that
is why I have not simply destroyed these mortals as they deserve.”

“Silver is poisonous to demons and demon lords,” I said slowly, pulling a morsel of demon lore from the depths of my knowledge. “It's an important element in ritual acts of destruction, and can be used to confine them to locations if the boundaries are seeded with pure silver.”

“Which, I can assure you, is accurate in this case.” Magoth paced the edges of the room, glaring at the walls. “This room was clearly created by someone with a grudge against demon lords.”