Demon Angel

said quietly. "But I would have let Sir Pup eat a few pieces first."
    He buried his face in her hair, held her tight against him. "You don't have to make me laugh. I do not like how it was done, but it had to be done."
    And letting her go was difficult, but it also had to be done. He leaned over, picked up the axe. Wiped it off on the carpet and tossed it to Sir Pup. "Do you want his swords?"
    She glanced over at the two swords Beelzebub had dropped and shook her head. "We could vanish the body. Carry it out and dump it over the bridge."
    He wrapped his hand around the bolt in Beelzebub's right shoulder, pulled it out. "Why change our course at this point?"
    "We knew we might have to kill him," she said. "But we did not know it would be this; we assumed it would be fighting, that he would have shifted into his demon form, and that it would clearly be self-defense." She gestured to the body, and he looked at the form beneath his hands. Except for the scales and fangs, Beelzebub looked human—and no one could mistake the wounds nor the precise decapitation as the result of a battle. "We understand this—but I don't know that they can."
    He quietly removed the rest of the quarrels, let Sir Pup vanish them. There was nothing to wipe his hands on, so he let the hellhound lick them clean. "There is blood on the carpet," he said finally. "We were seen entering the office. Even if we remove the body, there will be no doubt we did something to him. With the body we have some explanation; without it we have none."
    "We don't need an explanation, we need a fucking miracle." With a growl of frustration, she kicked a chair, then turned and glared at the demon's head as if she'd like to punt that next. He bowed his head to hide his laughter, and after a moment she smiled and sighed. "All right. What's the worst that can happen? You are thrown in jail and someone makes you his bitch, and I go to Hell. You call Taylor and Preston, I'll go get Bradshaw. I should warn you, though: I'm not his favorite person in the world."
    Why wasn't he surprised? "This was your idea," he reminded her, smiling. The telephone was on the floor beside the desk; Beelzebub had knocked it down when he'd charged them. Hugh replaced the receiver in its cradle, sat on the edge of the desk, and dug in his pocket for the number.
    "Well, the next time I have such an absurd one, stab me."
    "I will," he said, and she threw a grin over her shoulder as she opened the door.
    A man stood there, fist poised to knock. Her eyes rounded in surprise. Swearing, she quickly grabbed his tie and hauled him into the room, slamming the door.
    Hugh slowly rose to his feet. The agent's eyes widened as he saw Beelzebub, then narrowed when they focused on Hugh. Recognition filled his expression.
    "Fuck. Fuck." She pushed him up against the wall, his feet dangling ten inches off the floor. Though he outweighed her by at least seventy pounds, she lifted him as easily as Hugh would his cat. "Dammit, I was supposed to have time to explain, to get you ready for this."
    Bradshaw. Hugh studied the agent's shaved head, the lean, dark face. The other man's hands hung relaxed at his sides; no fear in him, despite Lilith's display of strength and the demon on the floor. "I don't think he needs to be prepared," he said.
    Her head whipped around, and she stared at him. "What do you—" Realization flared in her eyes. A long stream of curses flowed. She finally finished, out of breath: "A Guardian !"
    "You asked for a miracle," Hugh said dryly. In spite of his tone, relief flooded him; it was more than he could have hoped for, wished for. They weren't completely alone in this.
    She clenched her jaw, then dropped Bradshaw to the floor. "Someone up there hates me."
    "It was someone Below," Bradshaw said, and straightened his tie. "Smith's assistant called from a pay phone, because she'd 'forgotten' to tell me that he'd wanted to see me before I left for the evening." He looked past Lilith to Beelzebub's decapitated form. "I guess she lied."
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CHAPTER 34
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    Lilith knew she was extraordinarily lucky—but it was still humiliating. How could she not have sensed the truth? If she and Bradshaw had only a brief meeting, she could have excused herself… but ten years' acquaintance? And Hugh had been able to tell within seconds.
    She glanced over at them; the two men stood near Beelzebub's body as Hugh recounted everything the demon had revealed about the ritual.
    Sir Pup nudged