Cipher (Demonica Underworld #8) - Larissa Ione Page 0,16

Bael wants. But if you give me the list, you won’t have to go through the hell Flail will put you through. You can hold on to your sanity and yourself for a while. Let the effects of being in Sheoul seep into you gradually instead of pouring in like a dam breaking.

As much as Cipher hated to admit it, Lyre’s words made sense. And if he’d been here for seven months, like Flail said...yes, this might work.

He tossed the blanket aside. “If I give Bael the list, he’ll unbind my wings, right?”

“That’s the deal.”

“Then bring me my laptop.” He paused. “And some clothes. Real clothes. And a shower would be great.”

Lyre jerked like she was a marionette and someone had yanked her strings. “Are you serious?”

“I’m covered in blood and I’m naked. What do you think?”

“No, I mean the list.” Her silver eyes were wide, glinting with surprise. “You’re willing to give Bael the names he wants?”

Hearing her say it out loud made his gut churn. If he was right about this, he could buy time to escape without anyone getting hurt. If he was wrong, Azagoth’s wrath would make Bael’s cruelty seem downright merciful.

And so, with a deep breath and a silent prayer to anyone who would listen, he nodded.

“Yeah,” he growled. “I am.”

Chapter Six

“Ever seen the inside of a soul?”

Azagoth frowned at the speaker over the rim of his highball glass filled with Scotch. “You’re kidding, right?” He lowered the glass to his desktop. “You’re asking me, the Grim Reaper, a fallen angel who hasn’t found a new thing to do with a soul in at least two centuries, if I’ve ever seen what’s inside one?”

Jim Bob, an angel whose real name and identity Azagoth didn’t know, shrugged, making the hem of his hooded black robe whisper against his boots. “Supposedly, most souls are filled with light. But what about the souls you keep in the Inner Sanctum?”

This was a weird conversation, but Azagoth couldn’t work up the energy to be annoyed by something so minor. Not when big shit was going on all around him. Big enough that he’d been scattered and sleepless and distracted for days.

Last week, one of his sons, a boy barely in his teens whom Azagoth had only just met, had been murdered inside Sheoul-gra.

Inside Sheoul fucking Gra.

The bastard responsible for Niclas’s death hadn’t yet been identified, but he—or she—would be. Azagoth wouldn’t rest until he knew who had dared to kill one of his children inside his own realm and right under his nose.

One thing of which he was certain: whoever it was, they weren’t working alone.

Three of his grown children, trained, powerful Memitim, had also been slaughtered recently, and just this morning he’d learned that, without a doubt, the deaths were connected.

The remains of the demon who’d delivered the message were still splattered on the wall, and his soul was in Hades’s capable, cruel hands.

That demon’s soul was definitely not brimming with light.

“Most of the souls I deal with are full of blackness,” Azagoth replied. Since not all demons were evil, some didn’t possess a dark inner void, and a rare handful even radiated light.

Jim Bob walked slowly around the office, his gaze settling on the splatter. “When a good soul full of light is destroyed, the light returns to the Creator unless the soul is trapped, devoured, or used as fuel for a spell. What happens when an evil soul full of darkness is destroyed?”

Azagoth propped his hip against his desk and relaxed although, as always, he kept his powers locked and loaded. Jim Bob was a prime source of Heavenly intel, but he was also an angel. Which meant he could never be fully trusted.

“Same, basically,” Azagoth said. “The dark void inside a soul is fuel for a soul-eating demon. But if I destroy a soul, the darkness returns to Satan and makes him more powerful. That’s why so few have the power to destroy souls and why I don’t do it on a whim.” He’d also signed a contract stating he’d pay a hefty price for every soul he destroyed, and that price generally wasn’t worth it. Very little was worth giving up a measure of his power or a slice of his realm. “Why the sudden interest in the internal plumbing of a soul?”

Jim Bob swung slowly around, his expression, while always serious was downright grim. “There are rumblings of a plot to free Satan from his prison. I wonder if enough souls were destroyed if