“Good! Let’s get one.” I started to stand. “Chay? You want to drive?”
“Wait.” My dad held up a hand. “There’s more to it than just going to the local Gander Mountain and buying a knife, Milayna. If it were that easy, we would have done it years ago.” My dad let out a breath of frustration and pushed off the counter. “No, these daggers are special. Legend says they are made from the very coals of Hell. One prick from its blade and a demon dies. We don’t know who makes them, how, what they look like, nothing. In fact, we don’t know if the legend is even true.”
“So how do we get one?” Drew asked.
Chay’s dad shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve never seen one. The Demons are too afraid to use them. The Demons higher in the hierarchy use them to keep the lower, servant demons and hobgoblins in line. I guess they have an immunity to them that makes them unafraid to use them. It’s also said that demons give daggers to demi-demons. But as ferocious as they are, I’ve never seen a demi-demon use any kind of weapon to kill a demi-angel or a human.”
“We need one of those daggers.” Chay rolled his shoulders. “What about Azazel? Does he carry one?”
Chay’s dad shook his head. “I don’t know, son. I’ve never seen Azazel, only his demons.”
“Me either.” This from my dad.
“I have,” I whispered. The air in the room stilled, and everyone looked at me. “Not in the flesh, but in a dream. In a vision.”
“What’d you see?” My dad’s voice was hard.
“He looks like a man, but his skin is red, like he has a wicked bad sunburn. He has shoulder-length black hair slicked back on his head. It looks like he uses too much hair gel. In my vision, he wore a black robe. Tucked into the sash was a gold-jeweled handle. I didn’t think about what it was until now, but I’m sure it’s a knife of some sort.”
“The only way to get our hands on that dagger is to take it from Azazel… who none of us have seen in the flesh.” Chay flopped back in his chair, letting out a frustrated sigh.
“Or find someone he’s given it to.” I rolled my pop can between my hands.
“I don’t think that’ll get you the dagger. The legend says that a demi-demon who possesses it absorbs its strength, but also its evil. The person would be stronger than any of us and fueled by evil. Not someone you want to mess around with.” My dad pulled Mom closer to him.
Chay’s dad nodded, drumming his fingers against his thigh and tightening his other arm around Mrs. Roberts.
“And if a demi-angel gets the dagger? Does it still emanate evil?” I braced my forearms on the table and leaned forward.
Mr. Roberts made a sound in his throat and shook his head. He swallowed his mouthful of Coke and said, “The legend is that it gives evil to evil and enhanced power to destroy evil to anyone good who possesses it.”
“We need that dagger, even if we do have to fight a much stronger demi-demon to get it.” Chay threaded our fingers together. “We’ll just have to keep Evils out of the picture while we do it, so we can focus all our energy on the demi-demons. So one prick and a Demon is toast. What happens if we get cut by the dagger?”
Mr. Roberts looked at Chay, and his face softened. The love and worry for his son was clear. “I don’t know, son.” He shook his head and looked at the floor. “We just don’t know enough about it.”
Evils. Hmm. Could they… what if? Jake.
“The Evils. Is there anything that says the dagger has to be used by a demi-demon? Could an Evil have it?” I looked between my dad and Mr. Roberts.
Mr. Roberts looked at my dad and lifted a shoulder. My dad looked at me and mimicked his shrug. “We don’t know enough about it to even guess. Why?”
“There’s one person I know who’s turned so evil that he’s not even himself any longer. He’s cruel, sadistic, and I can see him and Azazel laughing over cigars and coffee,” I said.
“Who?” everyone in the room asked, their words overlapping and echoing each other’s. All except Chay. He knew the answer. A frown pulled at his lips, and he nodded.
“Jake,” I whispered. “And I’ve seen a leather sheath on his belt. The kind that would hold a knife.”
***
I stood on the back deck with Chay after everyone had gone home. He cupped one side of my face in his palm, gently rubbing his thumb across my skin.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
“Yeah, right,” I said with a laugh. “I look like I lost a boxing match after ten rounds.”
Chay leaned down and kissed my jaw lightly, just a whisper of a caress over the skin that was already swelling and turning a dusky red.
“I could kill them for what they’ve done to you,” he ground out between clenched teeth.