Page 113 of The Succubi's Choice

“I’ll text, from a new number.” Katya’s voice is final, firm, entirely in control, and Miri longs for that sort of conviction in anything she does. “I’ll sign it.”

“Okay, and —" A loud knock on the door cuts off the words like a guillotine, and with a panicked look, the Archdemon grabs Miri and Katya by the arms, and there’s the puff of air and —

They’re inside her work office, surreal with the lights off, the only illumination from the strip mall lights outside, and Katya’s knees buckle as soon as her feet touch the ground.

“Woah woah woah, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Miri finds herself hauling her friend up, steadying her by the elbows, for the split second it takes her to recover.

Katya grips her back, her fingers digging, almost on the border of painful, before abruptly releasing her, her face smoothing over.

“I thought it best that they not find more than who belongs there,” the Archdemon says, smooth, but there’s a tension in his jaw and in the long line of his shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be able to teleport here,” Katya all but spits out, and Miri’s so close she can see Katya’s pulse jumping at her throat. “We have runes, we have protections.”

“You’re going to quibble with that now?” He says, voice tinged with incredulity, and the dim light casts his face in deep shadows. “I panicked, I went to the first place I thought.”

There’s a beat, a moment, before Katya nods, her eyes wide.

Miri feels almost unable to breathe, like this is happening too quickly, too much without her adjusting, and the hand on her arm from the Archdemon quickly gentles into something soothing.

“If you want,” he starts, to her, and it feels like he’s speaking as if she’s the only person in the room, “I can go, get them out of your apartment, but it won’t be pretty.”

“No, let’s not shed blood in my place, that’d be bad,” Miri hears herself say, as if far away.

“Gabriel’s dealt with worse,” Katya says, brisk, entirely under control again. “He’ll call if he needs.”

She’s a lot more confident than Miri feels, so she nods anyways, and the hand on her arm gentles further, almost a caress.

“I’ll catch an Uber or something to my car, it’s back at your place, and...” Katya trails off, the unspoken rest of the sentence too weird to comprehend.

“I can take you...” The Archdemon says, but Katya shakes her head too quickly.

“Go, before they decide to check other places she might be,” Katya’s voice is firm, without a single bit of trepidation, like this is a normal event with normal consequences and normal ways of returning from, and Miri can’t even figure what to say before she strides out of the small little office, her keys jingling in her hand, as if this is a normal late night at the job.

With a quick glance down to her, the Archdemon strokes her arm, a small bright spot of kindness in the surrealism of the moment, and as the office door closes with a click, he exhales.

“This is not how I wanted this to happen,” he says, gravely, so quiet only she can hear, as if they need privacy in a crowded room instead of the dark office.

“How what to happen?” Miri asks, shifting closer to him, as if she couldn’t before, as if Katya would judge her.

He shifts closer as well, the sort of unconscious movement that men usually have. “Well, I didn’t want the Organization to turn on you like that, I don’t want people to think there’s an arrest warrant out, and —" As if it suddenly occurs to him, he exhales, and they’re no longer in the office, but in the messy apartment in Silverlake, with clothes strewn everywhere, the computer up and working, already heating up the room.

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