Page 36 of All's Hell That Ends Well

He lazily waved at me. “You’re on par with a seraph now.”

“What?” I gaped at him, my eyes so wide they threatened to roll out of my head.

“You bonded with an archdemon. What did you expect? You were a cherub before, and the shared power from the bond pulled you up a rank, given how strong Azazel is.”

My mouth hung open, my brain struggling to catch up and process. First of all, aseraph? Holy shit.

Secondly, did Lucifer just say something positive about Azazel? I furtively glanced around, prepared to see pigs flying.

I shook my head and focused again. “Wait, about the cherub thing. How did that even happen? I was a throne back in Heaven, newly promoted, to boot. Then I enter Hell, and boom—I’m a cherub. That seems like a big jump without me doing anything.”

He sighed as if belabored by having to explain this. “Rank responds to inherent power as well as outside forces. You had the potential in you, and the transformation to demon likely catalyzed it.” He sent me an annoyed glance. “Demons climb the hierarchy all the time.”

“But—this quickly?” I flailed. “I heard it often takes years, decades, even centuries!”

“Well, aren’t you a special snowflake, then?”

I ground my teeth and clenched my hands into fists so I wouldn’t show him a special hand gesture.

His gaze lay heavy on me, his energy pulsing ominously. “Her power in you might be helping you along.”

I sucked in a breath. That kernel of Lilith’s power…the gift that kept on giving, in the best way possible. My eyes burned as I whispered, “She said she hoped it would ease my path. That it would give me strength before my years.”

He was silent for a long, aching moment, the darkness in the corners of the room spilling sorrow like blood from cut veins. When he finally spoke, his voice held the kind of raw anguish that sliced open hearts. “She succeeded.”

My next breath was half a sob. To think…I stood here, with this incredibly generous gift of hers a glow in my soul, benefiting from her kindness while she had been wiped from existence. I was here, alive and well, cradling her power inside me. And she was just gone.

It’s not fair.

“Agreed,” Lucifer ground out.

With a start, I realized I’d spoken the last part out loud. My tear-clouded gaze shot back to him.

“You will find her for me.” He looked grief-ravaged once more, his features, his energy, his posture, all giving the impression he was holding on to sanity with blood-dripping fingers and a half-shredded will. “You will bring her back.”

The sheer, unmitigated pain emanating from him and my own freshly triggered grief about her passing almost made me want to promise that I would indeed find her.

The words stalled on my tongue. For how could I promise that? All odds were stacked against that search being successful.

But I would damn sure stilltry.

“I’ll give it my best,” I said hoarsely, and I meant it.

“See that you do.” He returned to his seat and summoned a glass of amrit. “You’ll start the search in New York City. Canvass the entire metro area and move outward from there. I suggest you think of a system of searching and keeping track of where you’ve been already. And make it one that is rational and follows a plan. I don’t want you to aimlessly go back and forth like a confused vacuum robot.”

I blinked at him. “You know what a vacuum robot is?”

“I am not some troglodyte, girl.”

“It’s just”—I waved at him—“you haven’t been to Earth in, like, forever, and it seemed like you abhor any modern technological advances humans have come up with.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t know what those modern technological advances are.”

“But how? Do you have subscriptions to tech magazines? Do you get your demons to fetch you the latest issue ofScience?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh. “How does he tolerate you?”

“Azazel? Well, he tried to ignore me at first, but that didn’t go so well, and then I think he just kind of surrendered and let me grow on him. Like a fungus.”

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