“If you accept their praise and light, then you must take in their hatred and darkness, too. And that’s a horrible road to walk down. Because, ultimately, you have nothing to do with how they see you or treat you. It’s all inside them.” He cups my face in his hands. “Allowing someone into your heart…That’s a privilege you must only grant to those who truly love and know you.”
A weightless feeling seeps into my bones. “Wow. That makes total sense.” I give him the barest of kisses. True, it’s breaking the rules of the bet, but at this point, I don’t care. “How’d you get so smart?”
He smiles. “I told you. Octavia.”
“Somehow, I think this is more than your mother. You’re an amazing man.”
Our gazes lock, and the temperature in the limo seems to spike about fifty degrees. My lust demon instantly awakens inside me. Nothing like super-smart words of wisdom from your honey to put you in the mood. Suddenly, I’m rather shocked that Lincoln and I have never fooled around in a limo before. Lincoln meets my gaze, and the way he’s looking at me? I might as well be naked.
Fooling around in a limo. We should definitely give that a try.
I am so convincing him to call the kiss. Right now.
Gunnar’s voice crackles over the speaker again. “We’re here.”
Or not.
With that, my lust demon gets pissed. This is the umpteenth time she’s been thwarted today. “Gah!” It’s not my most eloquent complaint, but it captures my mood perfectly.
Lincoln’s face turns unreadable, which is nothing less than amazing. My guy can go from molten-hot to Mister Cool in two seconds flat. I shake my head. Lincoln chuckles.
“What?” I ask.
“Did you have some unseemly plans for my person, Myla Lewis?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“Good. Remember them for later.”
Still Mister Cool. I really have to learn how he does that.
Gunnar opens the limo door beside me. A row of guards in purple body armor line either side of the walkway to the Pulpitum. The crowd stays behind them. This is Purgatory’s new army that was started after I drove Armageddon out of town. These troops are led by Cissy’s boyfriend, Zeke. His guards don’t fool around when it comes to keeping us safe.
It almost makes me want to take back all that nasty stuff I said about Zeke being a tool for ignoring Cissy all those years while she pined away for him.
Almost.
As I slide out of the limo, I tightly grip the satchel that carries the codex. Desmond ripped that thing away from me once. In retrospect, he probably was using a ton of stealth potions while he did it, but still. No way will I allow anything like that to happen again.
We exit the limo and step toward the Pulpitum.
The annoying shouts continue as we hustle past the mob and rush toward the round building. Like Lincoln said, there’s always a crowd here, waiting for someone famous to transfer somewhere cool. I should get used to it. They call out more irritating crap, but my tail waves to the throng. It really doesn’t care what they say as long as attention is involved. What a ham.
The guards stay outside as Lincoln and I enter the Pulpitum. It’s strangely quiet in here compared to the chaos outside. The Pulpitum is a circular chamber made of stone. Like always, the place is lit with fires that burn in these copper bowl thingies. A large metal disc takes up most of the floor. Lincoln and I step to the center of the round platform.
“This is Lincoln Vidar Osric Aquilus. Activating standard station.”
White laser beams pulse across the Pulpitum. This body scan confirms who we are. When it comes to security, the thrax are all high tech. Other than that, they’re pretty much stuck in the Middle Ages. Not that I blame them for the high-tech security part. There’s no place the demons would rather break into than Antrum. After all, it’s home to all the demon killers in the after-realms. Where better to attack if you’re demonic? Long story short, thrax spare no expense on the Pulpitums, and that’s a good thing.
A man’s disembodied voice echoes through the chamber. “Identity confirmed. Good afternoon, Your Highness. And greetings, Great Scala.”
“Thanks, Marty.” Like all Pulpitum operators, Marty is actually back in Antrum at Transfer Central. More high-tech fanciness.
A rustling of papers sounds through the intercom. “It seems that you’re late. Queen Octavia and King Connor were waiting for you at the Courthouse Pulpitum, but they got called off to another emergency.”
Lincoln’s brows quirk slightly. “What happened?”
“A demon patrol went missing.”
The thrax divide up the Earth’s surface into regions. Each House has a territory that’s theirs to guard against demonic activity. When thrax warriors talk about demon patrols, they’re referring to a group of five fighters from a particular House that visit Earth on an eight-hour stretch. The patrols plan demonic protections, watch out for bad activity, and—if they’re super-lucky—they get to kill stuff, too.
I love joining demon patrols.
I frown. This is totes weird. Demon patrols never go missing. “Where did that happen?”