Page 21 of The Demon’s Due (Bedeviled #5)

“It all hinges on stealing the brain away from him,” I said.

Since my plan required portal opening precision from Ezra, we’d returned to his quarters to hash it out.

“Once I have it, I’ll retrieve the plus codes, the locations of all the locks.

” I tamped down my shudder at the thought of touching it again.

“Then Maccabees move in, remove the locks in one fell swoop, and fend off my father’s minions.

We’ll bury the cells like we did with the ones in Paris.

No locks mean no soldiers and thus no coup.

” I unfurled a cold smile. “We finish him, once and for all.”

“You know where the brain is?” Ezra said.

“I’m pretty confident, but I want to talk it out with you. It’s taking more effort for you to maintain the security system magic, right? Even though the thrall should make it easier?”

“Right.” Ezra tore open a pouch of synthetic blood. “That tracks if Delacroix calibrated the system to include wherever he stashed the brain.”

“Does this yacht exist within some sliver of the demon realm? It doesn’t show up on the most sophisticated radar equipment.”

“It’s on earth,” Ezra said. “The security system cloaks it.”

“Okay, you accused Delacroix of staying on the yacht because there wasn’t anywhere else safe enough for him to go. But the brain has to be somewhere safe. And close at hand.”

Ezra sucked back the last of his drink. “There’s no way to break into his home. I’ve tried.”

“We don’t have to. Delacroix is bringing the freed prisoners somewhere and they won’t fit on the yacht. Plus, a lot of traffic going through the portals to the Hell gives away his plans. He’ll position the demons to be in place for the coup.”

“The demon realm.”

“Well,” I said, “one specific part that Delacroix can control because it’s beneath anyone’s notice. The foyer of the demon realm. The gathering place of a bunch of feeble old shedim.”

“Flaming Flapjacks,” Ezra said.

My phone pinged with a photo of a handsome Asian man around my age.

“Keeping your options open in case this whole thrall thing doesn’t work out?” Ezra joked.

I snorted and read my sister’s follow-up message. “This is Maud’s Maccabee security detail. Adrian Koo. She wants me to go through his personnel file.”

“Because she likes him? Google stalk him like everyone else,” Ezra said.

“Exactly what I’m replying.” I sent the text.

“Any hard feelings toward Maud after what Delacroix said?” Ezra asked carefully.

Maud replied to my text with a: you suck .

Me: Love you too, junior .

I shook my head. “It’s almost better knowing why she was his favorite when she tried to kill him—he’d respect that—but I was reduced to his punching bag.”

“Which will make it a million times more satisfying when you punch back.”

I smiled at him. “Exactly. Back to the brain. I bet he stashed it in a magic pocket accessible from both his place and the restaurant.”

Ezra pitched the empty blood pack in the trash. “If the restaurant is his war room, then it makes sense the brain is reachable from that side as well.”

“He won’t be worried about me accessing it from the Flaming Flapjacks side either,” I said.

“It would never occur to him that you’d come up with that angle,” Ezra said.

“Not only that.” I put my phone away. “We couldn’t have tried it before because that would have involved transiting through the Hell which would give him a heads up on our destination. But thanks to that thrall…”

Stealing the brain would make up for every single shitty thing about being a magic battery.

“Delacroix doesn’t know I can portal without using the Hell,” Ezra mused.

“Can you get to Flaming Flapjacks? You’ve seen it but it still is in the demon realm.”

“I can, but I haven’t seen wherever he’s hidden the brain.”

“You have seen his humidor though, and that’s where Delacroix reacted to my presence. I’m hoping that when you open a portal from the pancake house to the back of the humidor, it’ll go through wherever the brain is hidden. That it’s sandwiched between the Hell and Flaming Flapjacks.”

Ezra stood up and held out a hand. “No time like the present.”

“There’s one more thing.”

He dropped his hand.

“You’re going to open the portals but I’m the only one going through them.

If I’m right about Flaming Flapjacks, Delacroix will have some kind of protection in place.

Protection that doesn’t involve your shared security magic yet does detect any unwanted presence.

That said, he’s bringing locks through with shedim magic. Therefore…” I busted out my horns.

Ezra was silent.

“What’s the hesitation?”

“The thrall’s safety zone.”

I pursed my lips thinking, then shook my head. “Even though we’re jumping realms, the physical distance between you at the Jolly Hellhound and me in the portal will be minimal, so it shouldn’t act up.”

“You stay in contact with me the entire time. The second you don’t respond, I come in and get you.”

“Copy that.”

Ezra once more held his hand out to me.

I stood up and clasped it. “Really? You capitulate?”

“I’m agreeing, not saying mercy.”

“I bet I could make you say mercy,” I teased.

His eyes darkened and he squeezed my hand. “I bet you could,” he purred.

I sucked in a shivery breath. “Stay on track.”

“Thrall, right.” He groaned and slowly stepped away.

Honestly, that reminder had been for me because I’d been ready to rip his clothes off and lick my way across his body.

I grabbed my coat and purse. “Is leaving the Hell a problem when it’s, uh, somewhat disorganized?”

“We’re no longer open for business, so it’s not like it matters.” He packed a bag. “The Lord of the Copper Hell is no more. Once the Luce has been stopped and my staff is safe, that is.”

I wouldn’t expect anything less of him. “While we’re taking nicknames off the table,” I said, “I vote to retire Prime Playboy.”

“Aww. Come on. Crimson Prince doesn’t exist now either,” Ezra replied. “That means I don’t get any fun names anymore.”

“You’ll just have to reinvent yourself.”

We left the yacht, going directly to the Jolly Hellhound. Let Delacroix believe we’d scurried back to Vancouver to pass on his message to the Authority.

I was waltzing, uninvited, into a demon realm where my slippery serpent father was gathering troops to stage a coup, and I intended to steal a prized, if disgusting, blueprint.

What could possibly go wrong?

Fun! Cherry enthused.

Very , I agreed and let her out to play, morphing the rest of my human features to ones that would blend in better.

Ezra informed the pub’s staff to keep everyone out of the back room, even though it was unlikely any Eishei Kodesh would visit the casino now.

To be safe, I locked the door to the pub first. I jumped through the mesh light Ezra conjured up with a bounce in my step. It felt like passing through a membrane of static electricity, complete with magic giving me a thorough scan—like a bouncer studiously checking ID—before letting me through.

I’d been worried that the parking lot outside the 1950s pancake house would be busy for once, but it was as empty as ever. Even the apocalyptic sky had grown on me, its violent churning above the jagged obsidian cliffs almost charming.

All good , I said through our psychic bond.

Anything happening there?

The dancing pancake sign is turned off . I glanced inside the curved windows under the pastel green awning. But the place is bustling .

With who? Ezra said. Delacroix’s minions? Freed prisoners? Regular clientele?

No way to determine that from here .

Keep going . I’ve reconfigured the portal to lead to the humidor.

I stepped back into the darkness. Can you rearrange the mesh light and give me a gap to see through? This is the part we’re guessing on, so it’s best to know what I’m facing.

The dark strands quivered, then a hole about the size of my fist appeared.

I pressed my eye to it, sighing in relief at the sight of the brain hovering in a small bubble whose walls gleamed in pearl-like iridescence.

Almost all of its strange growths were gone, but having no clue about demon brain anatomy, I couldn’t determine whether that was normal or it had curled in on itself in a bout of seasonal depression.

Is it there? Ezra said.

Yes. On the count of three, connect a portal back to you . One. Two .

I grabbed the brain, recoiling at its meaty, pulsing weight, and careful not to touch any of the remaining nodes yet. It was exactly as gross as remembered.

Three .

I jumped into the pub’s back room, prize in hand.

The plan was for me to shove my hand in the brain and speak the plus codes. I had to slow the onslaught of information down enough to parse out each and every lock cell location.

Ezra would record them, at which point we’d put our loot back where we’d found it.

I dreaded reconnecting with that grotesque specimen—not some harmless, dried-out relic, but a pulsating mass of flesh. My stomach turned at the memory of its gelatinous texture quivering around my fingertips, but the sacrifice was worth it to fuck Delacroix over.

And get the love lock locations. Which was the primary goal obviously.

I joined Ezra at the table, plunged my fingers into the brain’s three final growths, and got a whopping total of four plus codes. One of which was the Pont des Arts in Paris.

Ezra researched the other three. All were well-known locales for love locks and places we already had Maccabees stationed.

I shoved my fingers deeper into the growths. “Come on,” I muttered, but instead of a tsunami of information, there was only a hollow silence. “He drained it.”

With the removal of my hand came a sad trombone sound.

From the brain.

Then Delacroix’s voice floated up out of it. “Girl detective badge denied.”

This was followed by unreasonably long cackling before the brain began to smolder from within. Gray matter hissed and bubbled as if doused with acid, then collapsed into a charred mass that crumbled to ash.