Page 46 of Witch Queen

Astarte made introductions. “This is Mae Jin, Azazel’s daughter. And that guy is Vlad Vissarion, Ilmon’s son. Those two are white magic and Arcane Magic wielders.” She waved a hand at Nikolai and Cortes curtly before indicating the head demon. “Everyone, this is Us’gorith. He is Armaros’s chief steward and the main reason this city hasn’t fallen to ruin.”

Mae and the three men murmured guarded greetings. Us’gorith’s jaw had dropped open. Shocked whispers rippled through the attendants behind him.

The head demon recovered first. “I shall make preparations for your stay.” He caught sight of Brimstone and squinted. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen that fox somewhere before?”

Brimstone jumped out of Mae’s hold and shook himself out into his nine-tailed form.

He towered over the demons, his voice booming across the courtyard. “Hello, old friend.”

Us’gorith gasped, his face brightening. “Lord Sotsuna! You have returned!”

Brimstone lowered his giant head and poked the head demon gently with his snout. “You can call me Brimstone.It is the new name given to me by my witch.”

He wrapped a tail around Mae.

“Where’s Armaros?” Astarte asked Us’gorith curiously while the other fiends crowded happily around the nine-tailed fox. “I thought that damn fool would be glued to his forge as always.”

The head demon’s expression turned strained. “He is…currently entertaining his majesties King Ilmon and Queen Thod.”

Astarte’s expression soured. “So, Ilmon and Alicia are bitching about their lives over drinks and he’s keeping them company?”

“I cannot lie to you, Goddess,” Us’gorith murmured. “I pray that you intervene before an unfortunate incident occurs.”

A loud curse made them all jump. Mae looked up warily. It had come from an upper window of the palace. More swearing followed.

“Not my thousand-year-old wine!” The voice grew thunderous with rage. “Ilmon, you bastard! How could you?!”

The sound of breaking glass ensued. Us’gorith paled.

“Looks like I’m too late,” Astarte muttered.

* * *

Vlad staredat the stuffed head of a hellmammoth mounted on the wall of the wide hallway they navigated. It wasn’t the only monster Armaros had chosen to display on the walls of his palace.

Cortes eyed a colorful tapestry hanging between a hellbear mounted on a stand and a halberd that could probably fell a helldragon. “This place sure is…different.”

The decor was a mix of the grisly and a kind of gaudiness usually associated with the nouveau riche. It was as far removed from the austere and elegant furnishings of Arakiel’s palace as an art shack on the beach was from the Louvre.

“It didn’t used to be this garish.” Astarte grimaced. “Let’s just say a certain purveyor of antique goods and his English friend persuaded a gullible demon to invest in a few period pieces.”

She waved a hand at a vase Vlad was pretty sure he’d seen in a museum.

Mae wrinkled her nose. “So Artemus and Sebastian hoodwinked Armaros into buying their stuff?”

Us’gorith lowered his brows. “This is but a fraction of what those two scoundrels tried to pawn off upon my liege.”

“What kind of idiots must they be to try and deceive a demon commander?” Cortes muttered.

Astarte rolled her eyes. “The kind whose father is an archangel and one who harbors the soul and will of a prickly divine beast.”

Noisy revelry rose from the room they were approaching. Us’gorith opened the door and went in ahead of them. To his credit, the demon didn’t even flinch when a scythe hummed past his face and stabbed into the wall to his right.

“Oops,” the Queen of Soul Reapers mumbled. “Sorry. We were playing darts.”

She swayed a little where she stood behind a couch covered in the hide of a helltigress, her flushed cheeks and glazed eyes indicating that she was well on her way to getting stone drunk.

“I think you will find that the darts are in your other hand, my queen,” Us’gorith observed with the stoic expression of a demon who’d dealt with this shit a thousand times before and had the receipts to prove it.

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