Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [35]
“Why did you bring him?” he snarled at his two wrath demons.
Both men bowed low, in a way that implied they were groveling without their actually doing so. “It was an accident, Your Greatness. He flung himself on the dragon as we were escorting her through.”
“I did not fling myself on May. I have never flung myself on anyone in my life. I am a demon lord—if there is any flinging to be done, it will be of minions!” Magoth snapped.
Bael rolled his eyes for a moment before dismissing the demons, turning his attention to me. His gaze landed on Jim. He frowned. “Have not I seen you before, demon?”
I swear Jim curtsied. “That you have, your most infernal of all infernal beings. I’m Jim. Effrijim, really, but you being stuck with your alternate names of Beelze bub and Baalzuvuv know how it is—short and punchy is definitely the key to success.”
Bael continued to frown, obviously not remembering who Jim was.
“I was here a few months ago with May. We kicked some wrathy ass, not that you probably want to hear that, but you know, if one sixth-class demon and a doppelganger can do that, you might want to up your standards a smidgen,” it said with a helpful air.
I punched it in the shoulder.
“I’m just sayin’!”
“Well, stop it!” I said, waving my fist at it.
“If one of my wrath demons allowed you to get the better of it, then I can assure you it was not due to inef fectiveness,” Bael said dryly as he moved around to sit behind a large, ebony desk.
“Yeah? Then why would . . . shutting up,” Jim said, having accurately read the look in Bael’s eyes.
“And about time, too,” Magoth said, grumpily shoving the demon aside to stand before his boss.
Bael, without looking up, waved a hand toward me. I took the chair he indicated. Magoth waited a moment, but no such nicety was extended to him. With audible grinding of his teeth, he hauled over a chair from against the wall to sit in front of the desk, plopping down into it with a rude noise caused by bare flesh on glossy leather.
Bael, in the process of opening a drawer, froze for a moment, but he pulled out a laptop and set it in the exact center of his desk without comment.
I glanced at Magoth. He had a testy look on his face, his legs mercifully crossed, his fingers drumming out an annoying tattoo on the chair’s arm.
“You go ahead. Evidently my business is not nearly so important as that of my slave, my minion, my consort.” His lips were tight as he answered the question in my eyes.
My curiosity prodded me to ask Bael, “I don’t mean to harp on a subject you probably would like to forget, but are you saying your wrath demon held itself back when I was here a few months ago?”
I hesitated to bring up the reason why Jim and I had been in Abaddon, lest it rub a raw spot.
Bael flipped open the top of the laptop, and punched a couple of keys with laconic pokes of his long fingers. “That is correct.”
“Why?” I asked, remembering the scene well. The wrath demon Jim and I had disarmed sure didn’t seem to have been holding back anything.
“You are a dragon,” Bael answered, his eyes on the laptop screen.
Magoth snorted and said something rude under his breath.
“And?”
Bael heaved a sigh, as if my questions were too tiresome to answer. “I find it best to adhere to a policy of noninvolvement with members of the weyr.”
“And yet that doesn’t stop you from holding a wyvern prisoner,” I pointed out.
He waved a graceful hand toward me. “That was different. I did not seek to control the wyvern—she was sent to Abaddon, sent to my palace specifically. I merely provided her with . . . accommodations.”
I forbore to point out the obvious.
“Until, that is, you released her.” His eyes pinned me back, and I was very aware for a moment that he had enough power to squash me like a particularly ineffective bug. Then the dragon shard kicked in, filling me with dragon fire and a matching fierceness.
Bael’s gaze dropped,