Demon Angel

ridiculous tripe, not an intellectual treatise designed to stroke his ego."
    Preston raked his hand through his hair. "Then explain why an obviously educated man would write it so badly, except as a puzzle for others to decipher?"
    "I can't," Lilith admitted. And she didn't care; there were other portions of it that concerned her more. They could talk of codes and hidden meanings; she just wanted to know why Hugh had written her story with the skill and care of a retard.
    And why he'd lied to her for eight hundred years. The anger that had boiled in her belly for hours began to rise again.
    "You looked through that book for the first time on the drive here," Taylor said. Her psychic scent radiated suspicion and disbelief. "But you quoted that passage verbatim."
    "And so you think I'm not being honest about having read it before?" Lilith guessed, unwilling to mince words. She grinned, and despite the absence of fangs and horns there was more demon than human in the expression. Her fingers clenched on the rear door handle, denting the metal. "Just like Castleford, I'm really fucking smart."
    Cerberus's balls, she was being incredibly stupid. Her stomach and chest ached, her head felt ready to explode. What was wrong with her? She needed to get out of here, to settle herself. Through her ignorance of the book, she had screwed up the letter as evidence that would help direct the investigation away from Hugh. Now she was alienating the two people who might hold Hugh's fate in their hands.
    Better human detectives than Lucifer to own that fate? Or Lilith, once Lucifer called in her debt to him?
    Before either detective could launch into the angry response Lilith could feel them getting ready to deliver, she held up her hand, took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. That was out of line, and I apologize." She smiled sickly, and she didn't have to fake it. "I don't think I'm feeling very well, and I'm taking it out on you."
    Taylor stared at her for a moment before giving a short nod, getting into the car and slamming the door. Preston hesitated for just a moment. "Agent Milton—"
    The words wanted to stick in her throat, but she forced them out. "I know. I wouldn't want to ride back with me, either. I won't have a problem making my way back." She sighed, leveled a look at him. "You have something on this guy, something you haven't shared with me. This book isn't reason enough for the certainty you two have that Castleford's your guy."
    Preston opened his door. "I'll send a copy of the file to your office for you to look over. We can use your expertise, but"—he gave a humorless snort of laughter—"if this is how you work with others, I can see why the Bureau keeps you out of the locals' faces."
    She deserved that, Lilith mused as they drove away. She opened her fist, and the mangled door handle dropped to the pavement with a clatter.
    Petty pleasures. She'd existed on them for far too long.
    She wanted deep, meaningful pleasure. The kind Hugh had promised with his eyes in his office, with his lips as he'd spoken her name. The kind she couldn't have.
    The building in which Hugh was now, teaching kids who probably didn't know their ass from their balls, sat only yards away, at the other end of the parking lot. Easy enough to walk back there, see if he'd follow through on that promise.
    She closed her eyes so that she couldn't be beckoned by the curving concrete and glass, and the man within. Was her desire to have him stronger than her desire to avoid Punishment?
    She breathed out slowly. Yes.
    But any emotion that forced her to choose between him and herself was a treacherous one, and she couldn't trust it. After all, it was the type of emotion she had spent her existence engendering in others. That choice would only be destructive for both of them.
    It was reason enough to walk away—but she couldn't.
    She heard the clacking of his computer keyboard from the hallway. Her ego bruised that he hadn't been sitting in silence, brooding, she opened the door.
    "That took longer than I thought it would," he said. Lilith frowned, wondering if she'd been so predictable when her decision to come had been one of the most foolhardy choices she'd ever made.
    He was certainly predictable in his lack of reaction; he didn't look away from his computer. From her angle, the glare of the screen on his lenses made his eyes impossible to read.
    "I know what you're doing; I read it in your book. You're trying to provoke me by ignoring me. It won't